


Fever Pitch

by the_moonmoth



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: (adding that for the searches because it's close enough), Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Asexual Character, Asexual Relationship, Aziraphale's True Form (Good Omens), Bath Sex, Bathing/Washing, But super soft, Crowley Has A Vulva (Good Omens), Crowley Has a Penis (Good Omens), Crowley's True Form (Good Omens), Demisexual Crowley (Good Omens), Dirty Talk, Explicit Consent, First Time, Genderfluid Crowley (Good Omens), Hand Jobs, Happily Ever After Ending, He/Him Pronouns For Crowley (Good Omens), Kissing, M/M, Making an Effort (Good Omens), Mating Bond, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Oral Sex, Pillow Talk, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn with Feelings, Post-Canon, Praise Kink, Sex Lessons, Sex Pollen, Sexual Tension, Sleep Groping, Sleep Sex, South Downs Cottage (Good Omens), Strength Kink, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, but not quite in the human way, sort of like angelic pon farr, surprising amounts of introspection for a pwp, that becomes a sexual relationship, the author is as surprised as anyone that there may in fact be some semblance of plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:01:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 42,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24298507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_moonmoth/pseuds/the_moonmoth
Summary: Just less than a year after the Ritz, Aziraphale and Crowley are living together in the South Downs, blissfully happy with their relationship and the shape of their new lives together. Things couldn't be better. So why is Aziraphale suddenly daydreaming about a different kind of relationship altogether?“I have an… affliction,” he said, trying very hard not to let the teacup rattle in its saucer. “An illness, you might say. It comes around now and then, and I’m afraid I very much need space and, and quiet to deal with it.”“What do you mean, an affliction,” Crowley said, relentlessly. “You’re an angel. You don’t get sick.”“I do, in fact,” Aziraphale said testily. “Not very often, and believe me, my dear, I’ve always made certain never to do so around you. But I can assure you that every century or so I come down with… these symptoms, and I know quite well by now what I need to do to recover.”“And you want me to leave?” Crowley said. “While you’re vulnerable? Just up and go--”“To London, yes. I’ve booked you a nice hotel, plenty of amusements. It really will only be a handful of days, a fortnight at the most, and then things can go back to normal.”
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 1203
Kudos: 1463
Collections: Best Aziraphale and Crowley





	1. Sunday & Monday

**Author's Note:**

> With thanks to [Kedreeva](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kedreeva/pseuds/Kedreeva) and [LylaRivers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LylaRivers/pseuds/LylaRivers) for their advice with regards to writing a character on the asexuality spectrum, and much beta love and thanks to [mia_ugly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mia_ugly) and [Ladiama](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladiama/pseuds/Ladiama) <3 I'll hopefully add an update every Monday until the fic is complete (I am currently 4-and-a-bit chapters and about 23k words deep, but the final chapter count is still a bit of a guess at this point). Check out my tumblr for any changes to this schedule, however, as I'm due to give birth in just over 8 weeks and Stuff Might Happen.
> 
> I've been having so much fun writing this. I hope you enjoy :)

_**Sunday** _

They were on the sofa when Aziraphale first noticed it. 

Crowley was lying with his socked feet in Aziraphale’s lap, watching some weekend cooking programme with the volume turned down low enough for Aziraphale to read his book. He had balanced one of the throw cushions they had picked out together (velvet and beads, John Lewis, all very tasteful, though of course Crowley had made a performance out of rolling his eyes and huffing about _more_ clutter) on Crowley’s shins, and his book on top of that, and it was a perfectly cozy set up with one hand wrapped around a mug of cocoa and the other, when not on page-turning duty, resting comfortably in the vicinity of Crowley’s knee. 

They could spend hours like this, and often did, whiling away their Sundays in idleness together, Aziraphale reading or working his way through the crossword, Crowley with his phone or the TV. Sometimes they threw comments back and forth to each other, read passages aloud, exclaimed over a contentious addition of eggs to a scone recipe, and sometimes they were quiet. Both had their merits, and Aziraphale would take Crowley any way he could get him, but the special thing about quiet days was the way Crowley would sprawl, and encroach, and sometimes outright snuggle.

Because it turned out that Crowley was incredibly affectionate. It shouldn’t have been a surprise, after all this time, but somehow Aziraphale hadn’t considered that once they’d thrown off their respective shackles and were free to be seen with each other -- to _move in_ together -- that Crowley’s tendency to bring him little treats, and do all those small miracles Aziraphale couldn’t or wouldn’t do for himself, to smile at him with such fondness and spoil him however he most liked to be spoiled, would translate into this kind of physical form. Crowley loved to touch, to nudge shoulders, brush hands, and once he’d realised that Aziraphale wasn’t going to rebuff him anymore, he had quickly moved on to reaching for Aziraphale’s hand as they sat opposite each other over meals, draping whichever sprawling limb was closest over him while sharing the sofa, or the bed, wrapping his long arms around Aziraphale’s waist and hooking his chin over his shoulder while Aziraphale stood waiting for the kettle to boil. 

It shouldn’t have been a surprise, but it was, even now several months after they had left London behind to make a new life together on this little hill by the sea with its quiet, sandy cove. Aziraphale supposed that after six thousand years, it would take some time to adjust to any kind of new normal. But good gracious how he _loved_ the feel of that lanky body butting up against his own, the way his chest still tightened and his stomach fluttered with happiness when Crowley would shuffle over to him in bed and wind all four limbs around him as he drifted into slumber.

Crowley genuinely seemed happiest, most content, when some part of him was in contact with some part of Aziraphale, and since Aziraphale derived the twin pleasures of the touch itself _and_ making Crowley happy, it was a very favourable state of affairs.

It was foolish, though, to have lost track of time like this. So very, very foolish. Yes, the decade or so leading up to the failed Apocalypse had been more than a little distracting, but really that was barely an excuse. It was summer again, almost a year since all of that had resolved itself. They had even celebrated the New Year together -- 2020, a brand new decade! -- it was so incredibly stupid of him not to have made the connection. Because then it meant, instead of being prepared, cognisant of what was to come and able to make plans accordingly, Aziraphale didn’t notice it until they were sitting together on that couch, realising with mounting horror that the book he had unthinkingly selected from the shelf that morning was of a very _certain_ genre, and that the hand resting oh so innocently on Crowley’s leg had been inching higher over the course for the morning, and by then, there really was very little time at all.

*

In retrospect, Crowley’s first inkling that something was wrong came on Sunday night, when Aziraphale didn’t come to bed. The angel didn’t sleep, never had, but it had been one of the great delights of this new life of theirs that Crowley had been able to introduce him to the pleasures of lounging around in a truly sumptuous bed, doing very little at all. Aziraphale had taken to it like a duck to… whatever it was ducks took to, reading by the low light of his bedside lamp so as not to irritate Crowley’s eyes, a warm, steady presence for Crowley to bask in, better than any sun-drenched rock. It had become their routine, and yes, sometimes Crowley awoke in the middle of the night to an empty bed and soft clinks from the kitchen, the sound of the kettle boiling. But Aziraphale always started the night tucked under the decadent feather duvet with Crowley and that, he felt, was really the important part.

So when Aziraphale turned to him that evening and said, “I hope you don’t mind, my dear, but I rather think I’d prefer to stay up and get on with a few things,” it _had_ seemed a little odd, something out of the ordinary, a tad unusual. Hardly worth remarking on, though, and really, if Crowley were to put it down to anything (which he genuinely hadn’t thought to at the time -- not until later) it might’ve been the fact that the first anniversary of Nopemageddon and their attempted executions was coming up, and it would hardly be surprising for Aziraphale to be having some feelings about that.

Water! That was what ducks took to.

(They had come a long way in a short amount of time, and Crowley had absolutely no cause to complain, life had never been better, yadda yadda yadda, but if there was one thing Aziraphale still often had trouble with, it was talking about things. Openly. They were so used to stuffing their meaning into vague words and facial expressions that, yeah, it took a lot of effort sometimes to force the honest truth to come out. Especially when… when it came to asking for something, getting a need met. And it wasn’t like Crowley didn’t know he could be just as bad as Aziraphale when it came to that sort of thing, it was just, since they’d moved out to the South Downs, Crowley had very few needs remaining because everything he wanted -- to be where Aziraphale was, to make him happy -- was right here, and he was allowed to have both, as much as he liked. Aziraphale, on the other hand… even though he had to know by now that Crowley would do anything for him, sometimes he needed some time to work himself up to asking for it. That was okay. They had plenty of time to figure it out.)

*

Aziraphale sat alone in the dark kitchen, plate of chocolate digestives untouched on the table before him, and tried to think. Surely there was some way to handle this that wouldn’t result in total humiliation? But if there was, he just wasn’t seeing it. 

He needed Crowley to leave for a while, that much was certain. Probably a week would be sufficient, but two would be better, and how in the devil’s name was he supposed to facilitate that without some kind of explanation? Perhaps if he simply asked Crowley to give him some space, to trust him that it was necessary, that would be enough, but Crowley had always had a sixth sense for when things weren’t right in Aziraphale’s world, and somehow he couldn’t quite picture Crowley leaving him when he was obviously in distress.

But the thought of Crowley staying… it was… it was… No. Impossible. It could only ruin things, when they had worked so hard to earn what they had now. And yet, once the idea had come to him, he couldn’t unthink it.

_They rang in the New Year together, one of many quiet evenings in with good champagne and better company, satisfied on Peking Duck from the local take away and Crowley’s latest attempt at dessert. Aziraphale remembered how Crowley’s face glowed in the light of the TV as he laughed unrestrainedly at something on the Graham Norton Show, heart singing in time to that wondrous sound. Later, when the footage switched to Big Ben, Crowley leaned warmly into his side and pressed a sweet, friendly kiss to Aziraphale’s lips as the TV lit up with fireworks over the Thames. And later still, to the sound of some Jules Holland jazz number, Crowley fell asleep with his head against Aziraphale’s chest, a faint smile still softening his mouth, and Aziraphale sat for an hour or more in perfect, quiet joy, before scooping up all his awkward angles and carrying him to bed._

That was such a happy memory, limned in gold and carved into the heart of him, so why, now, was he imagining that kiss as something else? A doorway, an invitation, instead of a destination in and of itself. The… the very selfishness astonished him, to have so much, to have been so content, only now to start greedily yearning for more. And it wasn’t even as though they had never kissed before -- certainly there had been places and times where a kiss on the cheek or the hand, or even the lips, was perfectly acceptable between friends and associates. Though of course a kiss given out of custom, and one given out of friendship and love, could hardly be compared. And the way Crowley’s eyes had looked close up, warm and happy... Always so happy, now...

_“I love you. You knew that, right?” Crowley said as the sun sank behind him, setting off his hair. All throughout their dinner at the Ritz, Aziraphale had felt buoyant, as though all of his innards had been replaced by air and he could float up to the ceiling at any moment. But sitting on the bookshop’s tiny roof terrace later that evening, looking into eyes more familiar than the sun as those words were spoken aloud for the first time, he really did feel fit to burst._

_“Oh, Crowley,” he said, eyes brimming, heart brimming. “I did. I do. I love you, too.”_

They had embraced. Wings got involved somewhere along the way. Another perfect memory that Aziraphale was now daydreaming had been a beginning to something else entirely. And fruitless, so very fruitless, because he had known Crowley for over six millennia, and he had never once shown even the remotest interest in… that. 

Probably it was just him, Aziraphale thought dejectedly. Beings of angel stock weren’t supposed to… they weren’t designed to… _be_ like that. Crowley was perfectly normal; it was him who, once again, was the oddity. A very soft and rounded peg who never comfortably fit within the square hole of his design.

Aziraphale sighed, and let his head fall into his hands, giving in to self-pity just for a moment. There wasn’t a good solution here. Not one that would leave him unscathed, at any rate. But doing nothing was completely out of the question, and so he would do what he could, and try his best to minimize the fall out.

Rising decisively, he went to the little nook between bookcases that Crowley called his study, and opened up the laptop.

_**Monday** _

Crowley took a longer shower than usual that Monday morning, out of sorts and ill-rested. Aziraphale hadn’t come to bed at all last night, as far as he could tell, and he was trying not to mind but it was hard when the upshot was such a bad night’s sleep.

Afterwards, he stood in the middle of the bedroom with a towel draped around his waist, letting the water evaporate from his skin as his sluggish brain slowly worked through the problem of clothing, when the angel finally made an appearance.

“Oh good, you’re u--” he started to say, before abruptly coming to a halt. Crowley turned to look at him, trying to work out what the problem was, when a massive yawn overtook him and he covered his face to deal with it, rubbing his eyes and pushing his flopping fringe back off his forehead before taking it home and arching all the way into a spine-cracking stretch.

There was the sound of breaking pottery, and when he opened his eyes again, Aziraphale was bending over a mess of shattered mug and spilled coffee, red in the face and fussing over it all by hand.

Raising an eyebrow, Crowley snapped his fingers and the mug appeared whole in his hand, full to the brim with steaming hot coffee. He took a sip while inspecting Aziraphale over the rim, but thus relieved of anything to clean up, Aziraphale was now standing there fussing with his waistcoat, still very much pink in the face and looking everywhere but at Crowley.

“Good morning to you, too, angel,” he said, taking a step forward to give Aziraphale a hug. Aziraphale stepped back out of his reach and left Crowley standing there, blinking in confusion. “To what do I owe the hand delivery? We out of crumpets or something?”

Aziraphale eyes shot up to his at that, the darting, rabbit-like glance that Crowley remembered so well from their earlier interactions and which looked utterly out of place to see millennia later in their home.

“What? Who said anything about crumpets?”

“No. No one. But you don’t usually…” He gestured with the mug. Aziraphale generally preferred a slow morning, cuddling Crowley into wakefulness before pottering around the bathroom getting ready together in a scene of sickening domesticity. Crowley couldn’t say he’d ever minded. “You seemed like you wanted something.”

“Wanted something?” Aziraphale said, colour heightening again, and Crowley loved Aziraphale dearly but it was too early to wrap his head around whatever bee the angel had already managed to get in his bonnet, so he took another big sip of coffee, settled for a pointed stare and tried to wait it out. “To t-talk. Ah, yes. I wanted to talk. To you. About something.”

“Something,” Crowley repeated.

“Yes, _something!_ ” Aziraphale practically squeaked, before turning tail and scurrying back out.

Good grief. Crowley made the executive decision to finish his coffee before snapping on his clothes and following.

*

Aziraphale tried his best to stay calm over breakfast, but even though Crowley was dressed now, it seemed an impossible task to scrub the sight of him practically naked and _glistening_ from his mind’s eye. Oh, how many times had he seen Crowley in one state of undress or another? Countless! Even in just the last few months. He had always noticed him somewhere at the back of his mind as attractive, as _desirable_ if matters had ever arranged themselves to take that sort of turn. But not like _that_. Like the sight of his skin was unbearably provocative, a temptation all in itself, the promise of thirst slaked in the desert. (The lithe arc of Crowley’s body as he stretched putting something else entirely to mind, a breathless moan, the sound of his name whispered in pleasure.) Oh, it was awful, having this new-old awareness forced across his vision. Not because Crowley wasn’t beautiful, or didn’t deserve to be the object of someone’s desire, but because the two of them had entered into this living arrangement, this _relationship_ , on some kind of tacit understanding of how things _were_ between them, and now Aziraphale’s stupid metaphysics were trying to rewrite that unspoken contract without Crowley’s knowledge or consent. 

“Are you going to come and sit down, angel?” Crowley asked from somewhere behind him, and Aziraphale suddenly realised that he had set the kettle to boil again despite the first pot of tea still sitting untouched at his elbow, and that the toast rack was already full and he should probably stop toasting bread now.

“Hungry this morning, are we,” Crowley said, coming up behind him to peer over his shoulder, standing close as he always did nowadays, breath a warm caress on the side of his neck, and Aziraphale took an unsteady breath and stepped to the side, fetching the butter from the fridge before returning for the tea and toast.

There was a long moment of silence, in which Aziraphale determinedly buttered a slice of toast (the butter perfectly amenable to the job of being spread despite not having been left out to soften), and refused to make eye-contact. Crowley’s presence in the room was like a star at the centre of a solar system, a weight that bent every one of Aziraphale’s senses towards him, until he finally came and sat across the kitchen table, a fresh cup of coffee cradled between his hands. (Broad palms, Aziraphale noticed. Long fingers. His lips tingled with the desire to suck them into his mouth.)

“Sleep well?” he tried, in a desperate bid to get his mind back on track.

“Nope.” 

There was something in Crowley’s tone. Not amused exactly, but knowing. Watchful. Damn. Sometimes Aziraphale, who had made it a habit of his existence to hide every important part of himself, hated being exposed so easily.

“So sorry to hear it,” he said, and tried not to react to the way Crowley looked at him askance.

“You wanted to talk about something?” Crowley prodded. In a flash of panic, Aziraphale shoved too much toast into his mouth, and then was forced to flap around looking for a serviette with which to cover the uncivilised display. Crowley snapped his fingers and handed him one with a wordless but very dry expression, their fingers brushing as Aziraphale took it, and the toast turned to cardboard in his mouth as his skin lit up like Bonfire Night. He took the serviette and gulped some too-hot tea, and looked up at Crowley and… lost his nerve.

“Do you know,” he said weakly. “I think you were right about the crumpets. Would you be a dear and run to Tesco for me this morning?”

Crowley sat back and gave him the kind of look that made Aziraphale miss the days when he still wore his sunglasses inside.

Then, he nodded slowly, and said, “Okay, angel. Whatever you want.”

*

While Crowley was out, Aziraphale fretted. He paced about the cottage from kitchen to living room to library to conservatory, and fussed and fidgeted and fought with himself and his own lack of courage. He had given Crowley quite a list of things to get while in town, and the dear boy never did rush about his errands, so Aziraphale knew he had a couple of hours at the very least to get his head on straight and come up with a way to explain himself, but now that he was alone these hours felt less like a reprieve and more like time lost between now and the point of no return. 

There had been other near misses over the years, he supposed. That whole thing at the Bastille, for one. That had been careless; even once he’d realised what he was doing and got himself back under control, it’d all felt a little too close for comfort. But generally Aziraphale had been able to arrange things so that Crowley was nowhere nearby, and not likely to come looking for him, either. The -- affliction, he supposed, was as good a word as any -- wasn’t so frequent as to make that a problem at any point in the past, even when they had both been inhabiting the same city (which had only been the last -- what? -- 3 or 4 times) and genuinely his thoughts had only really turned to Crowley as a potential… helpmeet… the last time around, and then he had been asleep.

He stopped in front of the hallway sideboard, a beautiful piece of 18th century craftsmanship, staring sightlessly for a while at the delicate woodworking, the decorative inlay in the top. Crowley had groaned and called it frou-frou when they had seen it at that car boot sale in Eastborne, but Aziraphale had thought it absolutely darling, and insisted on bringing it home. There was a picture frame atop it, with a photo of the two of them -- one of Crowley’s ubiquitous selfies -- Crowley grinning at the camera while Aziraphale smiled somewhat bemusedly at him, ice cream in hand, their little stretch of beach just visible behind them. There was also a potted plant, draping delicate green vines over one side of the table, and a modern sort of carriage clock set in glass that showed the gears and springs at work inside it, something Aziraphale vaguely remembered seeing at Crowley’s old flat in the last half-century or so. When had those items first appeared there? He didn’t recall, though they were familiar fixtures now. He hadn’t put them there himself. He reached out to run one finger along the edge of the picture frame, heart trying to squeeze and melt at the same time.

He loved Crowley. He really, really did. Loved his sly humour and his surly moods, the lines around his eyes and the way he sometimes hissed when he wasn’t concentrating on passing as human. He loved their life now, and the simple pleasure of being together, always. And he would be lying to say that he had never had thoughts about taking things in… a particular direction (not that he didn’t already sport the relevant anatomy, that was rather a necessity when one presented as male and had one’s clothes tailor made on Savile Row), but Crowley wasn’t interested, hadn’t ever been interested as far as Aziraphale knew -- didn’t, in fact, tend to even bother with the anatomical side of things -- and so, for some time now, Aziraphale had simply turned that side of himself off. It hadn’t been an especially big deal. It was an indulgence, another Earthly pleasure he occasionally thought might be enjoyable to experience together, but he didn’t _need_ it.

Until now, obviously.

*

Aziraphale was still twanging like a wire under tension when Crowley got back from the next town over, armed with the dry-cleaning, the particular brand of shoe polish Aziraphale insisted on using, the spare keys he’d wanted cut, the bag of shopping from Tesco’s, and an unrequested bouquet of flowers, just because. Going about the town, working his way down Aziraphale’s hastily constructed and very transparently unnecessary list, Crowley had had plenty of time to think, and he’d come to the conclusion that something was wrong. Which was a stellar conclusion, really. Truly incisive. But he didn’t seem to be able to get any further than that.

Aziraphale… didn’t want to touch him? Or, be in close proximity? That seemed to tally with his current observations, but not with the evidence of the last few months. He kept running through an unproductive cycle of worry and self-recrimination that he’d said or done something to upset him, before reassuring himself that Aziraphale’s strange behaviour didn’t seem directed _at_ him, per se, but was more… avoidant. Distant. Squirrely, like the way he’d got when he’d found the book of prophecy in the back of the Bentley and not wanted to tell Crowley about it.

Yeah, that still stung. They were past that now, though. Our side. Aziraphale had given the finger to his superiors and swan-dived out of Heaven for him. How could Crowley have any doubts after that? And he didn’t. Absolutely doubtless, him. But, well, it was _just_ close enough to old wounds only recently healed over to chafe a little, like rough wool over fresh scar tissue. 

So something was wrong with Aziraphale, and it _seemed like_ he no longer welcomed Crowley’s touch, but Crowley also knew he owed him the benefit of the doubt and an opportunity to get to the explanation he was clearly struggling with. But if his own patience was growing thin enough to maybe nudge the issue along a bit, well, it was probably for the best. If left to himself, there was a very real chance Aziraphale would take the rest of the century to get round to it.

So on his return to the cottage, Crowley put his somewhat hastily constructed plan into action. He liked making plans -- you knew where you were with a bullet-pointed list. And he was generally pretty good at them, did his due diligence, all that. It was the aftermath that tended to come back to bite him, but this was Aziraphale -- the odds of getting bitten seemed pretty small.

The angel was in the conservatory when Crowley came in so he went to the kitchen to put away the shopping and put the kettle on. While the water was boiling he quickly arranged the flowers in Aziraphale’s favourite vase and gave them a brief but stern talking to, then took the vase and a cup of tea out to Aziraphale.

“Oh! Crowley, you’re back.” Aziraphale jumped a good inch when Crowley entered, hand going to his heart. It was a bit of an overreaction, in Crowley’s opinion, but his expression softened into delight immediately when he spotted the flowers. “Oh, my dear, how lovely. Thank you.”

Crowley shot him a smile as he put the vase down on a side table. “Starburst lilies,” he explained, because Aziraphale really had no memory for botany. “I’ll get the stamen in a minute, don’t worry. Know you don’t like the smell.” He walked over to where Aziraphale was standing in the middle of the conservatory, looking oddly lost, and handed him the tea. Crowley was holding the mug by the handle and so Aziraphale wrapped a hand around the curve of the cup, but Crowley didn’t let go, placing his free hand over Aziraphale’s and meeting his eyes when the angel looked up in confusion.

“Love you,” Crowley said softly, and leaned in until their noses touched, the gentlest of nuzzles, before stepping back and relinquishing the mug. After so long having to hold it in, there was a special kind of nervous wonder to speaking the words aloud, even now. And it never failed to bring a smile to Aziraphale’s face. Except today, apparently, because Aziraphale was frozen, eyes wide, mouth slightly open, flushed as pink as the lilies. 

*

This was unbearable. The more Aziraphale tried to draw back and put a little space between them, the more Crowley seemed to be crowding him, standing so close that Aziraphale ended up backed into a wall, heart hammering. Bringing him endless cups of tea, letting his fingers drag over Aziraphale’s as he handed it over. Popping food in his mouth to try at lunch time as though he’d suddenly forgotten what cutlery was for. Aziraphale had never dreamed for one moment that he would ever regret entwining their lives so closely together, but now spending all day in one (admittedly generously proportioned) cottage was _stifling_. And it wasn’t like _he_ could leave. Being around other people was simply not a good idea in his present condition. If only Crowley would get the message.

Late in the afternoon, as Crowley was starting to make preparations for dinner, Aziraphale found himself in the garden in desperate search of some breathing room, walking beneath the fruit trees towards the wisteria-draped arbor that provided a favourite shady spot for reading. He sat down on the wooden bench and took a deep breath, taking in the faint salt smell on the air, the wet earth after yesterday’s rain, the green scent of growing things. On a whim, he bent down and unlaced his shoes, pulled off his socks, rolled up his trousers, and let his toes sink into the grass. It was a pleasant June day, the gentle breeze blowing the sound of the waves up to their garden, and Aziraphale looked down the rolling green hills to the sparkling sea beyond, and tried not to cry. This life was perfect and beautiful, and the man-shaped being he could finally share it with was perfect and beautiful, and Aziraphale… was a wretched mess.

Oh God, the way Crowley looked at him, with that soft light in his eyes, the way Aziraphale’s fingers burned to touch him, pull him close, cup his face and kiss him like a lover, slide a hand up beneath the hem of his t-shirt and caress warm skin. 

Before he knew what he was doing, Aziraphale had let his eyes slide closed to better form the picture, an erotic haze of skin and hands and mouths that left him too warm, breathing too fast, one errant hand pressed firmly between his legs. Coming back to himself he snatched his hand away with a horrified gasp, and raised it, trembling, to his face. As though he could forcibly wipe away the thoughts he didn’t want to be having. Even here, it seemed, there was no escape. Then again, Crowley had planted this wisteria for him so he could sit here in the shade, just like this. This was _their home_ ; Crowley was everywhere and he had a right to be. The exercise was pointless. He might as well go back in.

Sitting at the table for dinner was beyond him, however, and so Aziraphale suggested the rare indulgence of eating in front of the TV, and busied himself with the wine once Crowley had agreed. They watched the type of romantic film that Crowley swore up and down he'd picked for Aziraphale but which more than once had made him dewy eyed and comfort-seeking, and so it was a disastrous choice all round. Watching the two leads fall into bed with each other left Aziraphale swept with heartsick envy, and of course, as they whispered their sweet nothings to each other between kisses, Crowley chose that moment to slip his hand into Aziraphale’s and lean his head on his shoulder. His hair smelled wonderful. Aziraphale wanted to bury his hands in it and hold him still while he--

“Crowley,” he said, voice thready in his own ears.

“Yeah?” Crowley raised himself up a couple of inches, just enough to make eye contact. When Aziraphale had managed to drag his eyes up from Crowley’s mouth, he saw that Crowley had that big-eyed, guarded look that Aziraphale remembered so well from the years before the End Times, the one that said he was waiting to be hurt, and Aziraphale’s heart tried to crack down the middle.

“Nothing,” he said, and spent the remainder of the film concentrating on his breathing and mentally reciting The Iliad in its original Ancient Greek.

*

When the film finished, Crowley waited to see what Aziraphale would do, but he sat unmoving, apparently content to let Crowley remain tucked up at his side, and so Crowley started flipping through the channels until he found an old episode of Star Trek. Aziraphale asked a couple of pop-culturally oblivious questions, which Crowley enjoyed immensely, before giving in and explaining what was going on. They watched for a couple of hours in this vein, and it was so much like normal that Crowley started to relax.

Sometime after midnight, yawning, he waged the eternal war against gravity and poured himself onto his feet, and said without thinking, “Come on, angel. Bed time.”

He was at the living room door before he realised Aziraphale hadn’t even got up from the couch.

“Not coming?”

“Ah, well, my dear,” Aziraphale started, and Crowley’s heart sank. Something of it must have shown on his face because Aziraphale’s expression softened into something that looked, for a moment, like guilt, and he hurried to add, “Yes, yes, of course, I’ll just tidy up a little and…”

Crowley stared at him. “You never tidy up. You-- you’re practically allergic to tidying up. I once found a half-used mug in your bookshop that had been there so long it had developed its own language.”

“Really,” Aziraphale huffed. “There’s no need to exaggerate.”

“Who says I’m exaggerating?”

The silence stretched again, until Crowley couldn’t take it anymore. He snapped his fingers, and the dinner plates and empty wine glasses vanished. 

“There,” he said. “Problem solved. What’s your excuse now?” And turned on his heel and left before Aziraphale could answer. 

Distantly he noticed that he was angry. He didn’t want to be angry, and that only pissed him off more. But Aziraphale was being impossible, hiding something so badly it was practically begging for Crowley to winkle it out, but looking so panic-stricken every time Crowley came close to whatever it was that he couldn’t quite bring himself… Because what if it was him? What if he was the problem, and Aziraphale… No. He refused to go down that rabbit hole, not anymore.

But why couldn’t Aziraphale simply tell him what was wrong, instead of dancing this infuriating dance that didn’t seem to go anywhere? It left him with the same sense of emotional limbo as the many, many centuries in which they’d skirted round their feelings for one another, relying on code and double-speak. It had been essential, then -- a lifeline -- but now that they were on the other side of all that, Crowley hated this... this _backsliding_. 

They needed to talk about this. They were bloody well going to. But in the morning, when he’d had a chance to cool down.

He was in bed, on the edge of sleep, when the dip of the mattress brought him floating to the surface again.

“‘Ziraphale?” he asked groggily.

“Shhh, yes, go back to sleep.”

That sounded like an excellent idea, especially when the angel left his bedside light off and actually lay down. Crowley shuffled over inelegantly and laid his head on Aziraphale’s chest, breathing in the crisp cotton-scent of his pyjamas, feeling the give of his waist under Crowley’s draping arm. Aziraphale lay somewhat stiffly, but he didn’t really understand this whole sleep thing anyway so what did it matter? A hand in his hair gently massaging his scalp had Crowley drifting again, and so he couldn’t say if it was seconds or minutes before Aziraphale spoke again, voice soft and aching with contrition.

“I’m so sorry, my dear. I never meant to anger you.”

“S’all right, angel. Love you no matter what.”

There was a soft, hitching breath, and in waiting to see if there would be any further response, Crowley fell asleep.


	2. Tuesday Morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So I’m allowed to stay?” Crowley asked after a little while, overly and painfully nonchalant.
> 
> “Well,” Aziraphale said, and took a deep breath for fortitude. “That depends.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta love and thanks to Ladiama, mia-ugly and LylaRivers.
> 
> ETA: whoops! I accidentally uploaded this while trying to create a draft. Oh well, enjoy an extra chapter this week I guess ;)

_**Tuesday** _

It could only have been a handful of minutes before Crowley went back to sleep, but to Aziraphale, another six millennia might’ve passed. Crowley’s body was a warm, sensual weight against his side, the in-out tide of his breath heating and cooling one of Aziraphale’s nipples into excruciating sensitivity. He was achingly hard, and knew full well his pyjamas would do nothing to hide it if he were to be discovered. With Crowley’s arm slung low across his waist and one leg hooked over Aziraphale’s thigh, he didn’t know whether to pray for either limb to move enough to provide him with some friction, or to stay exactly where they were. (Or indeed whether prayer was the entirely wrong avenue.)

Finally, Crowley’s breathing deepened, and Aziraphale very carefully attempted to roll away from him. He had never been very good at sleeping, but he’d thought… well, he’d thought Crowley would appreciate the attempt, and that he never wanted Crowley to look at him again as he had earlier that night, just before he walked away. And perhaps, against all odds, he'd also thought that if he could manage a bit of unconsciousness that would actually be quite welcome right now.

Of course, he hadn’t factored in Crowley’s heat-seeking limpet impression -- the moment Aziraphale moved away from him, he followed, still fast asleep, and plastered himself against Aziraphale’s back. A shock of sensation ran through him. Had they ever lain like this before? He couldn’t remember. Usually he sat up against the headboard, reading, with Crowley’s face mashed into his hip and body tangled around Aziraphale’s lower half. Now, though… some part of him could still see how wonderful this would be under normal circumstances, how cozy and secure and loved he would feel, and he tried very hard to remember how to enjoy the warm, lax weight of him, the joyful anchor of his presence. It was impossible, though -- the only thing he felt was desperate to rock his hips back into Crowley’s, helplessly imagining an answering hardness pressing against his bottom instead of the smooth lack of genitals he knew was currently there.

Shifting restlessly, Aziraphale realised his cock was leaking, the wet, sticky patch it had left on his pyjama trousers dragging against the head with a terrifyingly good sensation. Trying not to whimper, he laid as still as he was able and willed his body to let go of this tension, put it aside for now, _please_. He managed it, just, but it was a near thing. Pulling down a furtive miracle to clean his pyjamas, Aziraphale disentangled himself from his bedmate as gently as he could, and fairly shot out of the room.

*

Crowley woke to an empty bed and a twilit sky. The clock on the bedside table told him it was just past 4:30am; he groaned softly, flopping onto his back. Aziraphale had come to bed after all, he was sure he hadn’t dreamt that, but he clearly hadn’t been able to wait to disappear again.

Crowley was starting to get really, really tired of this.

Scrubbing at his face he stared at the ceiling for a moment, glaring at a crack in the paint until it sealed itself up in fright, before rolling out of bed and going in search of the angel. He didn’t have to go far. Aziraphale was in the large, south-facing room overlooking the garden that he had stuffed to the rafters with books and smugly called his library. Many a time Crowley had found him in there, comfortably ensconced in the big armchair, absorbed in a book. Not this time, however. This morning he stood behind his desk chair, hands braced on the back of it and shoulders hunched, staring unmoving out of the window. Crowley could see perfectly well in the silvery pre-dawn light, but he couldn’t imagine that Aziraphale would be able to see much beyond the geraniums in the window box. 

The image was wistful, and lonely, and frankly scary, and a fine tremor of foreboding passed through him as he stepped lightly across the room, barely daring to breath. When he reached Aziraphale, however, the angel wasn’t looking at the scenery as Crowley had thought, but at a photo frame he kept on the desk. It was a picture of the two of them some passerby had snapped with Crowley’s phone, sharing a bottle of red outside a little cafe in Mont-Martre one sunny afternoon a couple of months ago. He tried to think of what to say, but his throat was lined with thorns and bitter honey, and so he reached out instead: a hand between the shoulder blades, where it had always been welcome before.

Aziraphale jumped so violently it made Crowley take an involuntary step back, and an aching chasm opened up between them.

“Aziraphale, please.” The words came out as a strangled whisper, and though he knew there was more to say, nothing else would come. 

Aziraphale’s eyes grew huge and glittering in the low light as he turned to face Crowley. He looked devastated.

“We need to talk,” he said, and Crowley nodded, because yeah, they really did, but now he was frightened, too.

“Please just tell me you’re okay, first.”

Aziraphale swallowed. “I’m not okay,” he said. “But I will be. If… if you’ll help me.”

*

Aziraphale’s head swam as he made the tea. There really was no putting it off any longer, the rational part of his mind understood that, and yet every time he tried to picture Crowley waiting for him in the next room, or tried to plan out what to say, his courage shrivelled up like an over-ripe passion fruit (and wasn’t that a sadly apt analogy). 

The carriage clock out in the hallway ticked remorselessly, however, a rather damning insistence that Aziraphale couldn’t drag this out any more. He did his best to settle his frayed nerves with a deep breath, and carried the tea tray through to Crowley.

He poured in silence, too much milk and three sugars, the way Crowley liked it, but left the teacup in its saucer on the table, unequal to any more contact just now, accidental or otherwise. Then he sat, not on the couch beside Crowley, but in an armchair on the other side of the coffee table, and fussed for a moment, settling himself. There was no bow tie to straighten, though, no waistcoat to adjust. Nothing but a poor excuse for an angel in his silly striped pyjamas.

“I need,” he started, and was forced to stop and clear his throat, before trying again. “I have a favour to ask. And I… I very much hope you won’t press me on _why_ , though of course I have no wish for you to worry.” He paused, waiting to see if Crowley would respond, but he simply sat, unnaturally still, staring at Aziraphale with eyes that had yellowed to their very edges. Oh dear. “Crowley, I need you to go away for a little while.”

“What?” Crowley said. “Where? Why?”

Aziraphale closed his eyes in defeat. Of course his darling serpent wasn’t made to blindly follow orders. He had known that, stupid, foolish thing that he was.

“I have an… affliction,” he said, trying very hard not to let the teacup rattle in its saucer. “An illness, you might say. It comes around now and then, and I’m afraid I very much need space and, and quiet to deal with it.”

“What do you mean, an affliction,” Crowley said, relentlessly. “You’re an angel. You don’t get sick.”

“I do, in fact,” Aziraphale said testily. “Not very often, and believe me, my dear, I’ve always made certain never to do so around you. But I can assure you that every century or so I come down with… these symptoms, and I know quite well by now what I need to do to recover.”

“And you want me to leave?” Crowley said. “While you’re vulnerable? Just up and go--”

“To London, yes. I’ve booked you a nice hotel, plenty of amusements. It really will only be a handful of days, a fortnight at the most, and then things can go back to normal.”

“No,” Crowley said.

Aziraphale’s heart sank. “No?”

“You heard me. Big fat bloody _no_ , angel. Being on each other’s side, that’s not a, a buffet menu situation! Oh, yes, I’ll take the cottage on the coast with a helping of devoted demon, but none of the, none of the-- this is an ‘in sickness or in health’ thing here. This is… I thought this was a together thing.”

His outburst trailed off pitifully and Aziraphale was forced to bite his lip to stop it from trembling.

“Please, Crowley,” he said hoarsely. Begged. “You have to. You have no idea what will happen if you stay.”

“ _Then tell me_ ,” Crowley growled. Aziraphale looked into his face for a long moment, pale with strain and absolutely determined, and understood what he had been trying to ignore for the past two days. He would have to tell Crowley everything. How had he ever thought it could go any other way?

*

There was a moment when Aziraphale's mouth tightened into a tense line and his eyes hardened, when Crowley was convinced he’d pushed things to breaking point, just as he had that week of Armageddon. That day in the park. He sat poised on the brink of an even more painful dismissal, part of him ready to take it all back and beg for forgiveness, another part digging its very stubborn heels into the strength of their relationship and a belief in what they had, unable to make a move in one direction or the other. So when Aziraphale finally spoke, the relief was immense.

“The first time,” Aziraphale began, “I didn’t know what was happening. It was just a, a powerful urge to return to Heaven, and so I did. After a short while up there, I felt myself again, and so I returned to Earth. No problem at all.” He paused, swallowing convulsively, and even though he wasn’t looking at Crowley, he nodded encouragingly anyway. “Only, it kept happening, every hundred years or so, and it became increasingly inconvenient to just,” Aziraphale gestured weakly at the beamed ceiling, “pop back up for a holiday. I had projects that needed tending, missions, people’s _lives_ , Crowley.” He said it imploringly, as though Crowley would ever disagree with him, but despite all the dithering and reluctance, something about this story had the flavour of rehearsal, something that’d been brewing for a long time, and so he simply nodded and let Aziraphale get it all out.

“So I started delaying it,” Aziraphale continued. “A few days, at first. Then a few weeks. Eventually I realised… it would pass by itself, if I could distract myself well enough. That’s actually, ah… that’s actually how I got into collecting books in the first place. I would store them up ready for the next time, to give myself something to focus on.”

Crowley considered this somewhat dubious, knowing Aziraphale’s tendencies towards both self-indulgence and hoarding as he did, but now hardly seemed the time to bicker about it.

“So you get this urge,” Crowley said, “that you need to be distracted from until it passes.” He spread his hands wide. “Not to brag, or, I don’t know, point out the blindingly obvious, but I’ve got a long and successful track record of keeping you distracted. Why… why do you want me to go?”

Aziraphale looked down at his restless hands, the reddening strip of skin beneath his signet ring as he twisted it like a worry bead. “Well,” he said, voice high and thin and possibly meant to be cheerful but falling far short. “The, uh, the returning to Heaven thing is only how it starts. I’ve come to assume it’s down to the length of time I’ve spent on Earth, far longer than anyone else from Up There. A, uh, manifestation of the corruption of my angelic essence.”

Crowley made a vehement noise of objection at that, and Aziraphale glanced up with a quick smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Oh not like that,” he said. “Just, I suppose, an artifact of inhabiting a human body for so long, living among humans, that kind of thing. One is supposed to return to Heaven to replenish one’s essence, reconnect with the host, sing a few rounds of hallelujah, but…”

“But this One has never gotten his jollies as a mindless holy automaton,” Crowley finished for him.

“Well,” Aziraphale conceded. “No.”

“So,” Crowley prompted. “You don’t go. Then what?”

“The, uh. The urge to return transmutes, I suppose, into something more Earthly in nature.”

“You-- what?” Crowley frowned, considering the meanings of _reconnect_ and _replenish one’s essence_. “You need to… eat the entire contents of the Marks and Spencer food hall?”

“Not exactly--”

“Read a whole set of encyclopedias?”

“No, no that’s not--”

“Meditate? Go on holiday? I can keep guessing all d--”

“Fuck, Crowley,” Aziraphale finally burst out, and it took Crowley a moment to understand that it wasn’t a frustrated exclamation, but an explanation. “I get the urge to fuck until I can’t walk anymore, and then fuck some more.”

“Oh,” Crowley said, slumping back into the couch in pure astonishment. “That.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale said, looking everywhere but at him. “Usually I manage to control myself, if I can achieve the necessary level of isolation, but sometimes, if temptation comes my way, I give in. Often in quite spectacular fashion. And with you here now, right in front of me… That’s why I need you to go, Crowley. Please.”

The ticking of the clock became somehow deafening, and when Crowley returned from his inner mental landscape, which was utterly blank and featureless, he saw Aziraphale sitting on the chair that they’d picked out together, in their living room, in the house that they shared, and he looked small and ashamed and Crowley couldn’t stand it.

“Well, now you know,” Aziraphale said carefully, bringing his hands under control, resting them lightly in his lap, staring somewhere past Crowley’s right shoulder. “I hope you won’t… that you won’t hold it against me. It really is best that I stay here away from, from people, but I got you the best rooms at the Savoy, tickets to the Donmar--”

“Aziraphale,” Crowley cut him off. Had to. Physically couldn’t take another second of this excruciating conversation. “You’re an idiot.” 

Aziraphale’s eyes snapped immediately to his, huge and hurt, so Crowley held up his hand to stop that right there, and said as gently as he was capable, “I’m not leaving. Of course I’m n-- I want to stay. Can’t I stay?”

Aziraphale just blinked repeatedly, as though his brain had blue-screened. Crowley waited out the inevitable reboot with muscles tensed painfully. After ten or so blinks, Aziraphale finally let out a soft breath, and looked up at him from beneath his lashes. “You-- you want to?” he whispered

Crowley was quite certain that he didn’t know what he was about to get himself into here, but he was also certain that the thought of leaving Aziraphale alone when he could be here helping him instead was absolutely untenable. And he had never really been the type to look before he leaped.

“Yesss,” he said, and meant it with every atom of his being.

*

Aziraphale didn’t notice the silence at first. His head was so busy with half-formed thoughts that whipped off into tangents almost immediately before sprouting three new thoughts like a Hydra, that it felt like a tornado was passing through the living room.

“You can’t… just…” he started, attempting valiantly to form a full sentence. “Crowley it’s not just the kind of thing you can…”

“Why not? Are you saying you’d _rather_ do this by yourself? It doesn’t sound like much fun.”

“It’s not supposed to be fun.”

“The humans often seem to think it is.”

“ _Crowley._ Please be serious.”

“I am. Aziraphale, I’m deadly serious. I am sitting here, begging you to please let me help you, and so far I haven’t heard a single good reason why I shouldn’t, just some Heaven-style claptrap about self-denial that is, honestly, severely out of character.” He paused, pinning Aziraphale with his yellow gaze. “Unless it’s me.”

“It’s not you,” Aziraphale said immediately. Despite it all, he would not let any fragment of self-doubt rest on Crowley.

“Then what?” Crowley asked, getting to his feet and starting to make agitated laps around the sofa.

Aziraphale sighed. “It’s about consent, Crowley, don’t you see? Of all the times I’ve been through this, all the times I’ve slipped up and taken a lover, they have always, always been willing. Enthusiastic, even. You… you shouldn’t have to force yourself to do this just for me.”

He was already shaking his head before Aziraphale had finished. “No, listen. I want to.”

Aziraphale was on the verge of frustrated tears. “But you’ve never wanted to before. Believe me, I’ve been paying attention.”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t start,” Crowley said mulishly.

“Yes it _does_! I won’t just impose my--”

“Oh give the self-righteousness a rest, will you? I’m here, I’m consenting--”

“You don’t even have any genitals!”

Crowley pulled up a miracle with rather more aggression than Aziraphale felt was called for. “There!” he snapped. “Made myself a cock. Happy now? I can show it to you if you want.” He gestured ostentatiously to his crotch.

Aziraphale closed his eyes. “Oh dear Lord.” 

He was certain Crowley was joking (not about the cock, the fit of his jeans was demonstrably different enough to give truth to that) but certain parts of his own anatomy hadn’t received the memo, and were perking up with interest at being given a show. “Crowley you are not being fair.”

“Says the angel who insists on speaking for me.”

Aziraphale ran a hand down his face and looked up at Crowley. Is that what he was doing? God, what an awful mess. “I’m trying to protect you,” he explained weakly.

Crowley raised a finger in argument, but Aziraphale cut him off with his own. “Tell me this. What happens if you... if we… get started and you realise you hate it? Having the right parts is no guarantee, you must know that. What if you don’t want to continue, but by that point I’m too far gone to stop myself? I’m stronger than you, Crowley. What do you think would happen?”

“You wouldn’t. I know you, angel--”

“You don’t know that. _I_ don’t know that. I’ve never been in that situation either, Crowley, and you have no idea how powerful this thing can be once I let it loose.”

Crowley gaped at him for a moment, arms flapping, before expelling a string of croaks and consonants that eventually resolved into, “Then let’s try it while you _can_ still stop yourself.”

Now it was Aziraphale’s turn to gape. “That time may very well have come and gone already,” he said. Then took a deep breath, holding up a hand to forestall any further argument. “Let me… I need to think about this.”

“Yeah, okay,” Crowley said eventually. “That’s fair. I’ll… I’ll go do some early-morning gardening, shall I?”

“If you wouldn’t mind,” Aziraphale said distantly, thoughts already set to whirling once more.

*

The tomatoes didn’t deserve this kind of treatment, Crowley knew that intellectually. It wasn’t their fault that the summer had been slow to warm up or that the garden didn’t currently have room for a greenhouse. But they were a bunch of wilting, undersized disappointments, and he was not exactly in the mood to spare the rod. Once they were appropriately cowed, he threw one final look of disgust at their quaking leaves and stalked over to the rose garden. Those thorny bastards were a bit less pathetic when it came to taking criticism, at least. There was a border he could really get stuck into.

Thing was… the thing _was_ , Aziraphale might’ve maybe had a point. Crowley _hadn’t_ ever been interested in sex before, and truth be told, wasn’t specifically interested in it now. It wasn’t as though the thought repulsed him, but he tended to categorise it in the same vein as food -- nice enough if you liked that kind of thing, but he could take it or leave it depending on the company. That was to say, he mostly ate because it was something he did with Aziraphale, and sharing that kind of experience was a pleasure all its own; he rather expected sex to be similar. 

But he didn’t _know,_ of course. Aziraphale was right in guessing that he’d never tried it. He occasionally wore genitals if the need arose, but in between those times, he tended to let his body go back to factory settings. He’d never, in those brief gonad-having times, experienced either sexual desire _or_ attraction, and frankly, he was fine with that. All those hormones and secretions. Messy business, sex. 

But here was Aziraphale, and Aziraphale was beautiful. He’d always thought so -- the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, really -- and Crowley loved him beyond all reason. With the right equipment, it probably wouldn’t be too great of a leap to find him desirable, too. Right? And more importantly than anything, Aziraphale _needed_ him, and that _did_ something to Crowley’s insides. Because that had been the fantasy all these centuries, hadn’t it -- to have Aziraphale openly admit to his needs, wants and fancies, and allow Crowley to pander to them as outrageously as he pleased. So even if it wasn’t the most pleasant physical experience he’d ever had (which, well, there were no guarantees, Aziraphale was right about that too) he would happily walk over broken glass to give Aziraphale what he wanted, and this couldn’t be worse than that.

The tea rose was giving him a dubious look.

“Shut it,” Crowley hissed. “I am not nervous.”

He brandished his pruning shears at it menacingly, and it subsided somewhat sulkily.

Uppity little gobshite, that rose was. Always had been. He’d got it for the scent, and Aziraphale loved the blasted thing so he couldn’t go digging it up now, but it had a superiority complex that he hadn’t been able to break yet, and they both knew it.

He _wasn’t_ nervous. He didn’t do nerves. He made a decision and he saw it through with charm and panache. Smooth operator, that was him.

Yeah, zero stakes, introducing sex into a relationship. Absolutely nothing that could go wrong.

Well, it wasn’t like he was going to go back on it now. Aziraphale needed time to come to terms with the reality of the situation, that wasn’t anything new. Crowley just had to be ready for when he finally realised it was okay to ask his _willing_ partner to meet his needs. Because despite the unexpected nature of all this, and his complete lack of experience, that was one thing he would love nothing better than to do.

*

Crowley was down on the beach when Aziraphale went looking for him later that morning. It was a sunny morning, but cool, only a handful of other people around, walking their dogs and taking in the sea air. The tide was in and it was slackwater; Crowley was skipping stones into the sea, getting five, six, sometimes seven hops on the still water before they sank below the surface. His expression gave little away, but Aziraphale detected a certain tension in the long lines of his body, something that perhaps might have been normal, once, but hadn’t been present in some months now.

He’d spent a good hour in the bathroom earlier, door locked, wringing his hands and failing not to panic. This was a dreadful idea. There were so many things that could go wrong, for so little return. The risk wasn’t worth it; he could stand a couple of weeks of (all right, rather extreme) discomfort to maintain the status quo. He had done it before and he could do it again.

But, oh. How much he sounded like his terrified former self, too frightened of the repercussions to ever act on how he felt. Was that what Crowley had heard when they’d argued earlier, a string of excuses based in nothing but fear of the unknown? 

Was he right? 

Aziraphale leaned his forehead against the cool glass of the shower cubicle and tried to unpick the tangled ball of wool his mind had become.

The fact was, he was utterly at odds with himself. Crowley had suggested they do this together, and Aziraphale didn’t want to, yet at the same time, he desperately, desperately did. He was well aware he tended towards self-indulgence and sometimes outright selfishness, and he was very scared of making a decision from that place. Already the fever-like prickling was crawling across his skin, pushing him to take what had been offered, but there was the tricky question of consent, when the offer was made under threat to the health of a loved one.

Humans faced this all the time though, didn't they? Or something like it. Aziraphale had personally known more than one human who had offered their organs to save a person they cared for without even a pause for breath; even if it meant risking their own health; even if it meant death. (Such selfless love they were capable of, it never ceased to move him. He’d never expected to be on the receiving end.)

But no, this wouldn’t kill him. It was merely physical discomfort that Crowley wished to help relieve him of, and perhaps an element of protection, to be present, to not leave his side. 

Then again, was it so wrong to try something new in their relationship? Plenty of people did it, without bringing about their own personal Armageddon. Perhaps he was overreacting. Perhaps Crowley would even _like_ it and want to… no, no, he couldn’t follow that line of thought right now, it would be too easy to sink into his baser instincts and get lost there. Though, the tantalising thought occurred -- if he could stop himself from descending helplessly into the realm of fantasy, perhaps he really did have enough control left to follow through on Crowley’s suggestion.

He forced himself to picture it, Crowley with clothes askew, flushed cheeks, a delicious erection all for Aziraphale. Imagined pressing him back against a wall, sliding his hand into Crowley’s open fly, smearing the fluid around his cockhead with his thumb before tenderly starting to caress him. Saw Crowley’s mouth fall open, his head tip back, an invitation for Aziraphale to taste the skin of his long throat. He made himself envision it all, and put his own reactions aside, control them the way he normally could, make them inconsequential. He was breathing hard by the end of it, skin clammy with the effort, but he did it.

Perhaps he really could do it in person, too. Have-- have sex with Crowley as a trial run, and still have enough time for Crowley to head for London if it was a disaster.

The thought of just diving right into that conversation made him want to shrivel up inside, though, and so he tried to soothe the blow the best way he knew how. He went to the kitchen and packed up the wicker picnic basket, tucked the blanket under his arm, and only once thus fortified did he go in search of his demon.

On the beach, Crowley noticed his approach and paused for a moment in his stone-skipping.

“What’s all this?” he asked, indicating the picnic things with a quirk of his eyebrow.

“An apology, of sorts,” Aziraphale said. “For letting things get so heated, earlier. I should have spoken to you about all of this sooner. I’m sorry I wasn’t brave enough to… well…”

“Be honest? Ask for something you need?” Crowley said, clearly not in a mood to hold his punches, but there was a softness to his tone that kept Aziraphale from recoiling.

“Right on the money, as always, my dear,” he said quietly.

They spread out the blanket together in silence, pinning the corners with rocks against the breeze. Crowley threw himself down into a sideways sprawl, head propped up on one hand, and Aziraphale moved to sit beside him, dry-throated with sudden shyness, and busied himself with setting out plates and pouring drinks. 

“So I’m allowed to stay?” Crowley asked after a little while, overly and painfully nonchalant.

“Well,” Aziraphale said, and took a deep breath for fortitude. “That depends.”

Crowley glanced up at him over the rim of his sunglasses. “On what?”

“On whether you’re still prepared to go through with a trial run,” Aziraphale said, making himself maintain eye-contact. 

Crowley swallowed, drawing Aziraphale’s gaze irresistibly to the bob of his Adam’s apple. “I am,” he said.

“All right,” Aziraphale said, taking another deep breath and hoping it wasn’t a fast track to hyperventilation. “We’ll start with kissing.”

Crowley gave him a look somewhere between disbelief and forbearance. “That’s not exactly--”

“Take off your glasses, please,” Aziraphale said, fussing with his plastic cup of sauvignon blanc so that it would stay upright in the sand. 

Crowley paused for a moment, some unintelligible noise tangling in his throat, before doing as he’d been asked. The beach was almost empty, it would be fine.

Once again Aziraphale made himself look Crowley in the eye, before slowly leaning down towards him. He hesitated for a moment when they were close enough for the light sea breeze to be replaced by the warmth of Crowley’s breath, but no protest seemed forthcoming, and so he closed the distance and pressed his lips to Crowley’s.

It was different to the New Year’s kiss. For one, it was premeditated, not a surprise. For another, Aziraphale let it linger as the heat that came from his angelic core tried to rise up and push him to something more. He fought the urge back, concentrating on Crowley’s mouth, the light pressure of his lips, the way he was leaning into it, just slightly. It was nothing, really. Barely more than casual affection to an outside observer. And yet the impact reverberated through his entire body, a powerful outpouring of sexual yearnings that liquefied his joints.

He drew back before anything as embarrassing as a moan could escape, and met Crowley’s eyes again. He looked calm, unaffected -- even slightly amused. Meanwhile Aziraphale was burning.

“Forgive me for saying so, angel,” Crowley said, “but that wasn’t exactly treading new ground. We’ve definitely--”

Aziraphale cut him off with a second kiss, taking advantage of Crowley’s surprise to lick his parted lips, trace the edges of his teeth. He didn’t exactly become tense, but neither was he relaxed, and with an almost unbearable fondness, Aziraphale sensed intense concentration as he tried to keep up with this change in tempo.

Without breaking contact, Aziraphale shifted his position a little until he was able to cup Crowley’s face in both hands and position him how he wanted. Crowley moved with him pliantly, jaw relaxing, and Aziraphale kissed him deep and slow, letting that endless well of passion spill over, just the tiniest amount, into this one point of contact.

Not far away, slackwater came to an end and small waves started to lap at the shore as the tide began to go out. They kissed like those waves, gentle, dragging, unhurried. It was sweet, and inexpert, but when Aziraphale let one hand trail softly down his jaw to the tender skin of his neck, he felt Crowley’s pulse as a steady thrum, a sobering counterpoint to the frantic gallop of his own heart.

“Is this okay?” he asked against Crowley’s lips, barely able to pull himself far enough away to form the words.

“Mmm,” Crowley said, sounding almost drowsy, and pulled him back in with a hand around the back of his neck. He looked and sounded as he did when Aziraphale had been petting his hair for any length of time, lax and contented, which was… not a problem, precisely, but not the best reaction he could have hoped for. Just as he was thinking that, though, Crowley ventured his tongue into Aziraphale’s mouth. He did moan, then, overwhelmed by the taste of him, the sensual wet glide of the kiss, the faint prickle of Crowley’s nails on the back of his neck in counterpoint, and gave over to the pure physicality of it, the relief in letting go even this small amount, just for a little while.

Eventually, though, the relief began to slide into something rather more urgent again. Reluctantly Aziraphale pulled back and sat up. He needed to stop now or something was going to give, and he feared it would be his self-control. Beside him, Crowley rolled onto his back and stretched sinuously, folding both hands beneath his head. He looked… he looked well-kissed, and content. Smug, almost. Aziraphale’s heart gave an almost painful thump of pride, and longing, and possessiveness.

“See?” Crowley said. “That was nice. This is going to be fine, angel.”

He threw Aziraphale the kind of cocksure grin he’d once used on his superiors, the kind he had to know Aziraphale could see through at 30 paces, and Aziraphale couldn’t help it, he laughed.

“That’s not all,” he warned. “You are definitely going to be getting more than a good snog before I agree to anything.” He couldn’t deny the sudden lightness he was feeling, though.

Crowley closed his eyes and smiled, more genuinely this time. “Promises, promises,” he said.

Aziraphale almost choked on his goat’s cheese cracker. “Are you-- _flirting_ with me?”

“Yes, Aziraphale, well spotted.”

Aziraphale couldn’t decide whether to laugh again or throw a napkin at Crowley’s head.


	3. Tuesday Evening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They had been inside each other, once, a level of intimacy and trust he’d been longing to share with Aziraphale for longer than he could remember. Part of him had been seeking to replicate it in some way ever since. Obviously they shouldn’t just go around inhabiting each other willy-nilly ( _willy-nilly?_ Ugh, he really had been spending all his time with Aziraphale lately). It had been dangerous enough the first time. But he hadn’t ever needed to touch Aziraphale the way he did now, and as they lay there entangled on the empty beach, making out like human teenagers, he wondered if sex wasn’t perhaps a way for humans to achieve that kind of closeness. The idea of sinking into each other in a slightly less metaphysical way sent a rush through his veins, a spike of adrenaline like zooming along the coast road too fast in the Bentley and scaring the shit out of some unsuspecting hikers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta thanks as ever to mia-ugly, Ladiama and LylaRivers. 
> 
> I should've made a note of it earlier -- as an allosexual person I'm writing beyond my sphere of personal experience here, and while I do have some very much appreciated help with the asexual aspects being explored, I would also like to make it clear that any mistakes or missteps are my own, and I'm very willing to listen if you think I could do better <3

Crowley lay on the picnic blanket and soaked up the sun as it swung slowly past its zenith, picking occasionally at the strawberries and the cheese plate, both of which paired very well with the wine. Aziraphale had gone quiet again, and there was something painfully restrained about him that Crowley didn’t like to see, but at least he no longer looked in danger of vibrating right out of his body with anxiety, so that was something.

The kissing had been fine. They’d kissed before, of course, but obviously Crowley knew the difference between those kinds of kisses and the one Aziraphale had given him earlier. That one had had a direction to it -- whether followed through on or not, it indicated a deeper intention, and he’d… liked it? Definitely hadn’t hated it. The feeling of a tongue in his mouth had been strange at first, but then he’d remembered it was Aziraphale’s tongue, and the strangeness had melted away. He hadn’t gotten off on it, though, whatever that meant. He didn’t know how it would feel to become aroused, to get an erection, but he’d kind of been hoping for a hint, maybe the warmth of blood flowing south, a pounding heart. He liked being close to Aziraphale, and kissing had felt like embracing him. Pleasant, warm, intimate. Happily do it again, probably. But the earth hadn’t exactly moved. 

Still, it was a start, and a decent one at that. Maybe it was just a matter of practise.

Aziraphale finally started packing the picnic things away an hour or two after midday. The breeze had dropped and the beach widened with the retreating tide. The air was thick with heat; the raking of waves on sand was a distant, intermittent drone. Crowley roused himself from a sun-drunk stupor to edge closer to Aziraphale, sitting up a little so he could rest his head on Aziraphale’s shoulder. The angel was even warmer than the sun, though the heat never seemed to bother him, and Crowley continued to make small adjustments, getting himself as close as he could, as much as he thought he could get away with. 

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said warningly, but if they were talking about it now then Crowley was going to make him say it.

“What?”

Aziraphale had taken off his jacket as the day warmed and was now in just his powder blue shirt-sleeves and waistcoat. They’d both made some tentative sartorial explorations since they’d moved here. For Crowley that meant adding an occasional splash of non-red colour to his wardrobe; he quite liked the way he looked in dark blue. Aziraphale had added a number of new shirts to his rotation, pale green and pink, with new bowties to match of course. But the shirt he had on today was one of his older ones, worn soft and fine with age, and Crowley couldn’t help rubbing his cheek against it for the sheer sensual pleasure of it. It struck him that he could probably unbutton the waistcoat, if he wanted to, get at more of the warm cotton softness, and before he knew it Aziraphale’s shoulders were hitching in surprise as Crowley’s hand made short work of the buttons and slipped inside, across the angel’s shirt-clad belly.

“My dear, you really are--” Aziraphale started, but cut himself off as he twisted into Crowley and, cupping his face in one hand to guide him (Crowley really did like having his face touched, it turned out) brought his mouth back to Crowley’s.

There was no easing into it this time. Aziraphale wasn’t rough with him, but there was something about his directness that spoke of hunger. A shiver ran through Crowley at the thought of being devoured by Aziraphale, being enjoyed with even a fraction of the gusto that he gave to his food. He couldn’t honestly say that anyone had ever enjoyed Anthony J Crowley in that way. After all the time he’d spent over the millennia trying to get Aziraphale’s attention, he wasn’t at all averse to receiving it like this.

Aziraphale’s hand snaked around Crowley’s neck, cupping the back of his head as he pressed his weight into him, pushing him back onto the picnic blanket. They went slowly, Aziraphale lowering him carefully, as though he were something precious, and that… that made his heart skip a beat, come flooding back with love. Aziraphale was on top of him now, heavy and sure, holding down all his ragged edges, and Crowley wrapped his arms around Aziraphale’s back, beneath his open waistcoat, trying to bring him closer.

They had been inside each other, once, a level of intimacy and trust he’d been longing to share with Aziraphale for longer than he could remember. Part of him had been seeking to replicate it in some way ever since. Obviously they shouldn’t just go around inhabiting each other willy-nilly ( _willy-nilly?_ Ugh, he really had been spending all his time with Aziraphale lately). It had been dangerous enough the first time. But he hadn’t ever needed to touch Aziraphale the way he did now, and as they lay there entangled on the empty beach, making out like human teenagers, he wondered if sex wasn’t perhaps a way for humans to achieve that kind of closeness. The idea of sinking into each other in a slightly less metaphysical way sent a rush through his veins, a spike of adrenaline like zooming along the coast road too fast in the Bentley and scaring the shit out of some unsuspecting hikers. 

With a sudden surge of exhilaration, he hooked a leg over Aziraphale’s and rolled them until he was on top.

“Oh _God_ ,” Aziraphale muttered, and Crowley grinned down at him, delighted by the blasphemy. 

“No call to go involving Her, angel,” he said, and leaned down to continue the kissing. Aziraphale moaned loudly into his mouth, a level of abandon Crowley had never seen before, and still he could sense the way Aziraphale was restraining himself, holding back. It came to him all at once in an intoxicating moment of enlightenment that, at least for the next couple of weeks, he had the power to make Aziraphale completely lose it like never before. He could feel Aziraphale’s interest in the proceedings pressed up hard against his hip, the way his hands were clenching rhythmically in the back of Crowley’s t-shirt, as though wishing for a different kind of rhythm. He wasn’t aroused himself but he was just starting to think that maybe he could get the hang of it with a little more of this, when Aziraphale pushed him back with a strong hand against his chest, and broke their kiss.

“My dear, you really need to stop this,” he gasped. “At least until we get back to the cottage.”

Crowley took in his pink cheeks, tousled hair, the disarray of his clothing, the turbulent disconnect between his words and his wants, and every demonic impulse rushed to the fore.

“Beach is empty,” he said with a suggestive smirk. “No one’s watching.”

“You fiend,” Aziraphale groaned, letting his eyes fall closed and his hands slide to Crowley’s hips. He pulled Crowley harder to him for a moment, breathing heavily, and Crowley couldn’t help staring at the sight, the way he shuddered and fought himself, before he (gently, firmly) pushed Crowley off him and sat up. “Cottage,” he said sternly, and Crowley couldn’t help throwing him a toothy grin before rolling to his feet and doing as he was told.

*

When they got back, Crowley mercifully decided not to interfere when Aziraphale made a beeline for their en suite and locked himself in it for the second time that day. Shower, he decided. Nice, cold shower to cool off and collect himself, before they… before he… 

It had to be today. This evening. It was afternoon already and his control was fading quickly. He couldn’t go another night and still be confident he could… that he… Good Lord, his mind was a scattered mess, his body an ungainly set of disconnected joints. As he undressed himself in haphazard, distracted fashion, every brush of fabric or fingers again skin set loose the sharp, metallic bite of static, as though he were charged up and trying desperately to reach earth. (He refused to dwell on the knowledge that an insulated body could only take so much charge before it started spitting sparks all over the show).

“Get ahold of yourself,” he whispered as he turned on the water, and his wayward cock twitched as though willfully misunderstanding the directive. 

Even with the urgency of the situation, Aziraphale couldn’t quite bring himself to step straight into a frigid shower. Normally, he preferred a languorous soak in their generous bathtub, his interest not so much in getting clean as in enjoying the experience. This, however, was a means to an end, a spiritual dousing more than a physical one, and certainly not about enjoyment. That said, there were levels of discomfort he would never willingly put himself through: he set the water to luke-warm, and gingerly lowered it incrementally until the sting began to burrow beneath his skin, drawing the heat of his ardour out of him. He washed himself methodically with something delightfully floral-smelling, taking comfort in the untaxing sequence of steps, this and then this and then this, but not before that. 

By the time he was done, clean and cool and wrapped in a fluffy white dressing gown to dry off, he felt a little closer to himself again. Grounded, in control. Soon-to-be-buttoned up. _Crowley undoing his waistcoat buttons on the beach, impish gleam in his eye. Crowley climbing on top of him, blanketing him in long limbs and temptation. Crowley’s soft hum of approval as he kissed him deeply to the sound of the sea._ Aziraphale shook himself out of it, and sternly pushed those thoughts away. They would have a quiet dinner at home, a last moment of normalcy, and then… well. Then he’d find out what precisely Crowley was up for. So to speak.

*

The sun was starting to sink behind the fruit trees when Crowley came back in from the garden. Aziraphale had been able to make him out by the old trestle table over in the far corner, tending to his seedlings for the last couple of hours (thankfully at a volume that wouldn’t have Mrs. McClure calling the police again). He came straight into the kitchen where Aziraphale was chopping vegetables from the local farmers’ market, to wash the soil from his hands, and Aziraphale absolutely did not get lost in the vision of soap and water and big, long-fingered hands sluicing the mud away.

“Ouch!” he squeaked, looking down with betrayal at his cut finger. The slice wasn’t deep, but it was already bleeding copiously.

“Here,” Crowley said, stepping closer, and took Aziraphale’s injured hand in his own. As he examined the wound, he made a quiet _tsk_ sound that had no right to be sexy, but still somehow caught like a hook in Aziraphale’s gut. 

“You ought to be more careful, angel,” he said.

“Yes, well,” Aziraphale said, utterly flustered. Crowley made a mocking little pout at him and Aziraphale concentrated very hard on _not_ leaning into to nibble on his bottom lip.

“Clearly can’t be trusted,” Crowley continued in the same, quiet rumble. “Better let me deal with this.” And he leaned forward and sucked the finger into his mouth.

Aziraphale’s knees nearly gave out. The shock of sensation spread from Crowley’s mouth up Aziraphale’s arm and straight to his cock with the speed and force of Stephenson’s Rocket. He fumbled blindly for the worktop with his free hand to keep himself upright, and only narrowly avoided another knife-related injury. He was only distantly aware of the sound coming out of his throat, somewhere between a whimper and an old-fashioned tea kettle coming to the boil.

He should say stop, but his mouth wouldn’t form the words. Hell, he should just pull his hand away, but then he wouldn’t be able to feel the tender heat of Crowley’s tongue as he licked the skin clean, the frisson of his demonic miracle as he closed the wound. And yes, while he was indeed dealing with it, the way he was doing so was deliberately provocative. (Though at the same time, strangely innocent. Because Crowley had never committed the act that he was alluding to, and no one had ever done it to Crowley either. The realisation had a strange power that Aziraphale didn’t fully understand; it occurred to him that although Crowley had no direct experience in sexual matters, he had a very great deal of experience with temptations in general, and took an immoderate amount of enjoyment in tempting Aziraphale in particular.)

“My dear, you’re doing this on purpose,” he whined.

Crowley released his finger with a final kiss to the tip. “Noticed have you?” he said, and there was a glint in his eye that most definitely spelled trouble.

“Hard to miss when you’re…” he gestured helplessly, and became distracted all over again by the cool air on his wet finger.

“Aziraphale,” Crowley said, and his eyes were still alight with mischief, though his tone was now gentle and serious. “I like this. I like seeing you like this. I’m enjoying it.”

Abruptly, Aziraphale realised that he’d been backed against the worktop, hands clenching the granite to either side of him, Crowley a mere breath away from making contact. His skin _ached_ for the pressure of Crowley’s touch.

“That’s all very well,” Aziraphale croaked. “But we agreed to terms, and those haven’t been met yet.”

“It’s going to be fine.”

“We’ll judge that together when we’ve established whether or not you're sexually attracted to me!”

Crowley leaned in, mouth so close to Aziraphale’s ear he shivered with it. “The kissing is nice. The way you look right now is spectacular. I really think you’re taking this too seriously.”

“Too seriously?” Aziraphale said, hearing his own voice go high with emotion, and then he was grabbing Crowley, both fists buried in the front of his henley, and was shoving him up against the tall American-style fridge. Various papers and fridge magnets went skittering across the kitchen floor, but Aziraphale paid them no mind, intent on one thing and one thing only, which was kissing Crowley fiercely, forcefully, rutting against him until the poor demon looked quite sufficiently shocked.

“One of us h-has to,” Aziraphale said primly, taking a swift step back, snapping the thread of tension their proximity had created. “I’ll finish up in here,” he said, turning his back. “You go and set the table.”

There was a lengthy pause before Crowley spoke again. “All right, angel,” he said, before leaving Aziraphale alone in the kitchen. It might have been his imagination, but Crowley’s voice had sounded more than a little hoarse.

*

Aziraphale kissed Crowley with a force of passion that left him feeling windswept, half-melted against the fridge. But then he stepped back, and Crowley was left propped haphazardly against the stainless steel, staring at him helplessly. For a moment he simply tried to process Aziraphale’s state, his heaving chest, his radiant warmth, the flushed skin, and it all added up to the realisation that he was sorry to stop. Call it curiosity but he really, really wanted to see where this would go, this new side of Aziraphale that was so lacking in restraint. He wanted to see what was on the other side of this crumbling wall and he couldn’t deny that provoking him like this was giving him the thrill of a couple of lifetimes.

And then… there had been his own reaction to the way Aziraphale had manhandled him with such ease, a flash of something molten deep behind his hips. That had been… something. He’d never felt anything like that before. A sort of rolling heat that started between his legs and weakened his limbs, left him pliant in Aziraphale’s strong grip.

He wanted… 

He _wanted._

He wasn’t even sure what. Just, more of that. Except that he knew he was walking a fine line with Aziraphale just now, and the angel had outright told him to stop, well, that was a hard boundary that he wouldn’t push against.

So he set the table, and chose the wine, and hoped Aziraphale wasn’t too distracted to overcook the veg again. When they sat, Crowley picked at the (beautifully flaky, slathered in lemon and parsley butter) catch of the day and mulled over that new sensation, the strange intensity of it. He even made an attempt or two to quietly recapture it, wondering if there was some skill to it that he could practise somehow, but the more focus he gave it, the more the feeling dissipated until it slipped through his grasp completely.

The remainder of the meal was quiet and a little tense, but they survived it, and when they were done, Aziraphale gave him a very small, very tight little smile, and made no mention of dessert. 

This was it, then. He could sense it coming in the way Aziraphale was sitting like he had a book balanced on his head and the threat of a cane to his thighs.

“You’re girding yourself,” he observed, aiming for mild, not sure if he’d landed it.

“I, ah--” Aziraphale started, dabbed at his mouth with a serviette, tried again. “Are you sure you want to go through with this?”

“How many times do I have to say yes?”

Aziraphale inhaled, and then rose to his feet. “Okay, then. Let’s… let’s not dilly-dally.”

“Dilly-dally? Really, angel? That’s how you’re going to seduce me.”

Aziraphale tried to laugh, but it was flat and rather lifeless, and Crowley, having let the promising moment against the fridge slip away from him, was finding himself sliding towards -- _hell’s sake_ \-- performance anxiety.

Thing was, what if that was it? What if nothing happened this time, or he couldn’t get any further along, or, or… he didn’t know enough to know what he should be worried about, and that alone set off another burst of worry. He’d been coasting along above the feeling all day, but now he’d lost his momentum and was in danger of sinking into the roiling mess beneath, because if he couldn’t get this right, Aziraphale would insist on sending him away, and he knew himself, knew he’d always been weak for Aziraphale’s wants, respectful of his boundaries: knew he would go, if it came to it. And no matter what happened, he very much didn’t want to go.

“Wait,” he said, only realising after a moment or two of standing there dumbly that they were in the living room, not climbing the stairs to their bedroom. “Not the-- not the bed?”

Aziraphale cleared his throat and tugged absently at his bowtie. “Too loaded,” he said, glancing over. “For me,” he clarified, seeing the look on Crowley’s face. “I need-- to focus on you right now. Entirely you, and nothing else. The bed is… I would want...” 

Crowley nodded, easily reading between Aziraphale’s lines. He wasn’t sure how he felt about it, and his preoccupied mind wasn’t throwing up any helpful clues, so he shrugged and decided it wasn’t a big deal to go along with whatever the angel wanted.

“Where do you want me?” he asked.

“On the settee,” Aziraphale said immediately. As though he’d spent all of dinner thinking about it.

*

It was one thing to insist on it so bullishly, but quite another to actually follow through. They had discovered that Crowley liked kissing, and that was wonderful, but if he couldn’t… if he didn’t like… Aziraphale couldn’t do this if he felt like Crowley was merely humouring him. Or worse, doing it out of some kind of misplaced obligation. No, it had to be this way. If only he could do something about the sea of nerves in his stomach.

He sat next to Crowley on the couch, not as close as he would’ve wished; still close enough to touch. His little finger was starting to feel raw from his constant twisting of the ring, but at least it gave him somewhere to redirect his attention.

He wondered if he should kiss Crowley; realised he wouldn’t survive this if he did.

“Sit back,” he said to Crowley, gesturing at the pile of John Lewis cushions piled up against the arm of the couch. “And try to relax.”

“Relax, right,” Crowley said. His voice was tight, but he gave Aziraphale a small, self-deprecating smile as he did so, nestling himself back into a diagonal line of black-clad limbs. “What, exactly, are we aiming for here?”

“Oh, yes,” Aziraphale said, mortified to realise he hadn’t actually discussed the specifics with Crowley at all. “I thought, um, oral sex is often the most-- stimulating--”

“You’re going to give me a blow job?”

 _I very much hope so_ , Aziraphale didn’t say. Because he absolutely hadn’t been fixating on the idea since Crowley had sucked on his finger so suggestively just an hour or so earlier.

“I thought -- yes. If you’re a-amenable.”

For a moment Crowley looked as though he might not be, that he might ask for something else instead, and Aziraphale was selfish enough to hope that he didn’t, because if he was only going to get one bite of this cherry, he’d really rather decided he’d like it to be this.

“Yeah, okay,” Crowley said eventually. “You’re-- you know what you’re doing.”

“And you’ll say something, if--”

“If I want you to stop,” he said, exasperated now. He crunched up from his sprawl as though he were going to reach out in some way, a touch, a kiss, but in the end just hesitated before sinking back down again. “Yes, angel.”

“Okay,” Aziraphale said, letting out a shaky breath. “All right. Good.”

Shifting his position, he moved until he was between Crowley’s legs, perched on the edge of the sofa cushions, and tentatively put a hand to Crowley’s ankle before letting it run lightly up the outside of his leg (hard muscles, bony knee) to the waistband of his jeans.

“May I?” he asked, indicating the fastening, and Crowley nodded, watching him silently. 

Suddenly fumble-fingered, the button seemed to fight him, and he couldn’t seem to stop himself from apologising repeatedly until he’d finally got the zip down and was faced with that trail of dark red hair disappearing tantalisingly into Crowley’s black cotton underpants. And beneath that, Crowley’s newly minted penis, the one he had manifested just for Aziraphale, the one, if everything went according to plan, he would be using to fuck Aziraphale with before the week was out.

Oh God, he couldn’t _think_ things like that, it was too much, too distracting, too much blood being sent to his own arousal when he was supposed to be focussing on Crowley. Who was still, he couldn’t help noticing, entirely quiescent, and somewhat tense. Entirely understandable, he reminded himself. Crowley might’ve insisted on this but it didn’t mean he was without his own misgivings. Taking a moment to close his eyes and will his own body’s yearning aside, Aziraphale reached out to push Crowley’s shirt up just a little way, exposing a few inches of flat stomach, and leaned forward to press his face to it. His skin was incredibly soft and smelled wonderful, salt and the low notes of spices from the shower gel he favoured, and he breathed him in deeply before pressing slow kisses up to the flare of Crowley’s ribcage, down his sides to the sharp jut of his hip bone, listening intently to Crowley’s breathing as he let out a couple of tiny sighs, some of the tension leaving him.

“I’m going to undress you now,” Aziraphale said, raising his head to look for agreement. Crowley nodded minutely and lifted his hips, allowing Aziraphale to drag his trousers and underwear down his thighs and off.

He got caught for a moment at the sight of calves and ankles; tangled up in the taper of muscle to bone, the delicate articulation of this human machinery they inhabited. When he looked back up, Crowley was shrugging out of his t-shirt, too. 

At Aziraphale’s questioning look he flushed faintly and shrugged. “Feels nice when you touch me,” he said, before tossing it aside and sinking back.

That was… promising. Aziraphale glanced down the whole wonderful length of him, the long throat, the span of his chest, dark pink nipples and sparse hair, acres of skin, until he got to the bony hips and found himself quite hung up on the sight of Crowley’s cock. It was as lovely as the rest of him, a velvety length surrounded by hair just as vivid as that on Crowley’s head, though perhaps a shade darker, the vulnerable balls beneath looking oh so touchable. He was still soft, though lengthening a little as Aziraphale’s hands fluttered anxiously up and down the skin of his inner thighs, and Aziraphale’s own desire sharpened painfully, a brutal shove in his gut that made his skin prickle and his cock press mercilessly against the inside of his trousers. His mouth was watering obscenely.

“Ready?” he croaked, forcing his eyes up to Crowley’s face.

Crowley’s breath hitched as their eyes met and he reached out a hand to touch Aziraphale’s cheek. This time, he did make contact.

“Look at you,” Crowley said, wonderingly, and Aziraphale felt blood rush to his face, which he supposed made a nice change from the other location, but didn’t really do anything for his state of mind.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “I must be a frightful mess.”

“No,” Crowley said quickly. “I just haven’t really seen you this…” He seemed to struggle to find the right adjective for just how bad it was, hand waving vaguely for a moment, before he settled on, “undone, before.”

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “It’s only going to go downhill from here.”

Crowley frowned, touching his thumb to the corner of Aziraphale’s mouth. “I meant it as a good thing, angel. Suits you.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale said, and as he opened his mouth to form the word, the tip of Crowley’s thumb fell past his lips and Aziraphale couldn’t help but scrape lightly with teeth and taste him delicately with the tip of his tongue. Crowley’s lips parted and his eyes lost their focus for a moment at the sensation.

“How--? Why does that--?” His voice was barely above a whisper, and petered out altogether when Aziraphale, very daringly, let his fingertips begin to trace a delicate path from Crowley’s inner thighs to the crease of his groin, the rough hair adjacent to it. When he reached the shaft of Crowley’s cock, Aziraphale’s stomach fluttered in relief and excitement to find him half-hard. 

Crowley gasped softly at the gentle touch, and Aziraphale released his thumb to ask, “Okay?”

“Yeah,” Crowley said. “Yeah. You can, uh, do that again. If you want.”

 _If I want_ , Aziraphale thought deliriously, but didn’t waste time on putting the thought to words. Instead he took Crowley in one loose fist and leant down to press a kiss to his hip before carefully, gently, doing the same to the base of his cock. Crowley hummed in encouragement and so Aziraphale did it again, working his way up the lengthening shaft between gentle strokes of his hand, until he could take the tip into his mouth. Crowley gasped again at that, the muscles of his thighs jumping as Aziraphale tenderly tongued at his foreskin, and when Aziraphale held his hip down against the couch cushion to steady him, he hardened quickly to fill Aziraphale’s mouth. Good gracious, but it was a thrill like no other, to give Crowley this, to have him accept it and hopefully (dear lord, how he hoped) enjoy it.

Aziraphale licked him some more, soft, teasing touches that were more to do with enjoyment than reaching a certain destination. Above him, Crowley’s breath began to come more quickly and he shifted restlessly against the cushions and Aziraphale’s grip as though unsure of what to do with his body. Aziraphale paid close attention to every little hitch and stutter, made a study of it, the intense focus on something outside of himself akin to how he had generally preferred to deal with these episodes in the past. Only this wasn’t a new book or any of a hundred projects he had taken up over the years, was it? This wasn’t even the mechanical relief of showering or chopping vegetables. This was Crowley, naked and spread out on their couch like an offering, putting himself in Aziraphale’s hands. His heart was a hammer, striking his ribs with every beat, how staggering, how humbling this was. How very much he loved Crowley.

He lost track of time to the act of cataloguing Crowley’s pleasure, taking it slowly, determined not to rush him through his. (Crowley liked Aziraphale’s tongue to tease at the knot of nerves beneath his cockhead. He liked a light touch on his balls, and a firm pressure on his perineum. Aziraphale took note of every precious little piece of information, stored it, deployed it with merciless efficiency). His awareness of his own body was passing, the press of the sofa’s piping into the back of his thighs, the twist of his back and ache of his jaw coming and going as he sculpted Crowley’s pleasure with his mouth. His own arousal would rise up within him like a monstrous wave, but he was not too near the shore yet for it to come crashing down uncontrollably, and he would simply redouble his attention on Crowley until it had dissipated once more. 

Finally, wondrously, Crowley was starting to get there, muscles tight with a different kind of tension, skin glowing with a fine sheen of sweat, breath coming heavily, and Aziraphale closed his eyes and took Crowley deep, let himself really _enjoy_ it for the first time, just as he would a fine meal or any other pleasure of the flesh. It seemed the right thing to do, as Crowley groaned loudly, helplessly, and his hips started jerking out of rhythm until Aziraphale went to his knees on the rug and fit his hands around the crests of Crowley’s hip bones, took them in a firm grasp and guided him in and out, showing him how to use Aziraphale’s mouth to chase his orgasm.

“Angel,” Crowley gasped. “I-- _nnn_ \-- I don’t--”

Aziraphale hummed around him, hoping to be soothing but unwilling to relinquish the glorious flesh to offer words. Crowley moaned again and the flavour of his precome filled Aziraphale’s senses. 

All at once it was too much. Aziraphale pinned him to the couch with an arm across his abdomen, fumbling at himself with the other, suddenly desperate for pressure and friction. Crowley made a pained sound, swearing loudly as he tried and failed to buck into Aziraphale’s mouth and was forced instead to take what Aziraphale gave him. And Aziraphale was greedy, he was ravenous, and he sucked Crowley down _hard_ until Crowley’s fingers were clenching in his hair and Crowley was crying out his name, eyes screwed closed, cock spurting into his mouth, and Aziraphale’s blood was thundering, and Crowley’s taste was the Earthly kind of divine he loved best, and he didn’t even try to hold it off this time, coming hot against his own palm, still inside his trousers.

*

Crowley wasn’t, as a rule, self-conscious. Especially about his body. It did its job of keeping him alive and functioning on this plane of existence, got him from A to B, and generally looked stylish while doing so. That was just about all he cared about, on any usual day. But lying half-on, half-off the couch, bare as the day he’d Fallen, legs splayed with Aziraphale between them practically collapsed face-down in his crotch, he had never felt so _naked._

For his part, the angel looked completely out of it. He was still fully dressed in his powder-blue shirt and waistcoat, the bowtie only slightly askew (the sight of it still in place somehow _maddening)_ , but sweat bloomed at his collar, his armpits, and was visible at the small of his back where his waistcoat had ridden up. His hair had coiled itself into damp, defined little curls at the nape of his neck. His shoulders were heaving as though he’d spent the last fuck-knew how long running instead of patiently, methodically bringing Crowley to climax.

That was… a big thought. Too big to come at head on just now, and so he tucked it carefully aside for later.

But was Aziraphale okay? Crowley didn’t know what to do, whether the angel was still fighting for control over his urges and needed to be left alone for a moment, or whether Crowley should offer to help him, now that they’d established-- what they’d just established, or, or something else.

Caught in indecision, and dealing with his own weird shyness, Crowley reached unthinkingly for the fuzzy, indecently soft blanket Aziraphale kept draped over the back of the couch and sat up a little to get it wrapped around his shoulders. The movement dislodged Aziraphale, who knelt up blinking like the lights had just gone on and stared groggily at Crowley for a moment, before something seemed to snap to attention within him and he launched to his feet. 

“Oh my dear, are you cold? Let me help. I’m so sorry-- I shouldn’t have-- There, is that-- No, no, please let me--”

“S’fine,” Crowley said. “I’m fine. _Aziraphale_ , calm down.”

“Oh. Sorry,” he said again, looking a little lost. Crowley hesitated a moment, fighting this strange reticence, before reaching out for his hand. When Aziraphale’s only reaction was to blink confusedly at the touch, Crowley gently tugged him down beside him on the sofa. 

“Hey,” he said, lacing their fingers together and squeezing. “Are you okay?” And then, struggling for some kind of confidence, “Do you need me to, uhhh-- reciprocate?”

Aziraphale blushed and looked demurely at their joined hands. “Ah, no. No, that won’t be necessary. I already, ah-- You were so wonderful, I couldn’t help myself, you see.”

Something lit up inside Crowley at the praise. 

“So. That it, then?” he asked. “Did I pass muster? You actually going to admit that this is a good idea?”

“I, um…” Worry flashed across Aziraphale’s face, but it was a pale echo of his previous anxiety. “Would you like to sleep on it? Decide in the morning?”

Crowley was so bloody in love with this nitwit. 

“No,” he said, breaking out into a broad smile. “I’m good.”

“Oh, um, good,” Aziraphale said, and smiled back. It started small and nervous, but grew as they sat there, looking at each other.

“Come here,” Crowley said, opening the blanket. 

“Really? You aren’t afraid I’m going to jump all over you like a slobbering lout?”

“Part of the deal, angel,” Crowley said, rolling his eyes. “Why, are you going to?”

“No,” Aziraphale said softly. “No, I don’t think so. Not just now.” He slid over and snuggled into the blanket, resting his cheek on Crowley’s chest as Crowley wrapped an arm around his shoulders. 

“Tell me honestly now,” Aziraphale said after a few moments of restful quiet. “How did it feel?”

Crowley took a rare moment to think about his answer before speaking. 

“Good, I think,” he said, letting his fingers trace idle paths through Aziraphale’s hair. “Kind of… shivery at first. Bit like that feeling of being touched when it’s been a while, you know? And then… like something was winding tighter and tighter, until it all unwound in one go.”

“You enjoyed it?” Aziraphale asked, glancing up. “You’d like to do it again?”

“Ehhh funny thing is,” Crowley said, “think I’d like anything, if it was with you.”

“Crowley--”

“No, okay, wait, what I mean is, I liked that it was you doing that to me. I liked that you got off on it. I liked your hands on me and I _really_ liked seeing you want something so much and then get it.” He paused, trying to find the right words to explain it. “I don’t know if, if having the right equipment would be enough by itself, but… I think it’s you who makes the difference, angel.”

“Oh. Well, then,” Aziraphale said, expression going syrupy-soft, and Crowley couldn’t help but kiss his forehead as he lowered his head back down to snuggle in tighter.

“It’s going to be all right,” he murmured into Aziraphale’s hair, and was rewarded by a deep exhale, and the abrupt slackening of tension as Aziraphale melted into him.

“Thank you,” he murmured. “I love you terribly, Crowley. All the time, but especially just now.”

Crowley smiled and let his head fall onto the back of the couch. “Bet you say that to all the occult beings who miracle up a new appendage just for you.”

“Psssh,” Aziraphale spluttered, but it was warm and half-hearted at best.

“Listen, though. Got a question myself.”

“You always do.”

Crowley snorted, not in disagreement. “You’re really good at oral sex. Even I can tell that. Not exactly in the standard angelic job description, is it? How… how did you…?”

“Well, my dear, I’ve had plenty of practise over the years,” Aziraphale said, quite matter of factly given all his earlier coyness and fretting.

“How many times have you been through this thing?” Crowley asked, mildly horrified by the thought of Aziraphale having to repeatedly struggled through these episodes.

“Oh, about 50 or 60. But, well, you see, sometimes it’s just nice to enjoy a pleasurable feeling without the ethereal imperative.”

“You mean you sometimes do that for fun?”

“It feels very nice.”

Crowley made a thoughtful sound as he processed that. “Angel, we’ve been living together for months now. Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

Aziraphale sat up, a little further away than Crowley would’ve liked, enough for a conversation, though still not far. He looked very earnest.

“I thought you wouldn’t be interested, remember? And while I like it, I don’t need it. Not usually, anyway. Tucking that particular impulse away wasn’t a problem. It’s like, if you didn’t like the smell of-- of raspberries! I wouldn’t think twice about giving them up.”

“But you love raspberries,” Crowley said with a frown.

“I enjoy raspberries, certainly. But I _love_ you. Above all else, Crowley. If I never ate another raspberry for the rest of my existence, I still shouldn’t consider it a sacrifice. Do you understand? I don’t want to do things like… like eat raspberries, if you won’t enjoy it. Because I want to do those kinds of things with you, together, or not at all. And ‘not at all’ is just as good an option.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive.”

Mollified, Crowley reached to pull him back into their embrace, but Aziraphale stopped him. 

“Let’s go and get cleaned up, and then we can continue this in bed if you like,” he said. “You look exhausted, darling.”

As though by mere suggestion, an enormous yawn fought its way out of him, and bed with Aziraphale suddenly seemed like an even more attractive option than cuddling up on the sofa.

“Yeah, okay,” he conceded. “Lead the way, angel.”


	4. Wednesday Morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “My dear, are you trying to fluster me?”
> 
> “Yeah and it doesn’t seem to be working,” Crowley said, looking somewhere between put out and delighted.
> 
> “Well. Maybe if there were more detail?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta love and thanks to Ladiama, LylaRivers and mia-ugly, as always. Special guest beta love and thanks to summerofspock who was kind enough to help work out the kinks in a particular scene. My undying appreciation to them all.
> 
> Posting a day early this week, because I can :)
> 
> _A note about upcoming chapters: there's a chance there may be some genital-swapping at some point for one or both characters. I'm not yet sure how graphic or how long-lived, but since I haven't tagged for it yet, I just wanted to drop an advanced warning for any readers struggling with their gender dysphoria <3_

_**Wednesday** _

Given how overwrought he had been feeling, Aziraphale expected another restless night left to the endless treadmill of his thoughts while Crowley slept beside him, and so it was of great surprise that he woke up several hours later feeling better than he had in days. What’s more, he was warm and comfortable, wrapped around the curve of Crowley’s back in a mirror of their positions the previous night, face pressed into the nape of Crowley’s neck, knees tucked into the back of Crowley’s knees. Holding him like that, enfolding him so completely, felt like something he hadn’t realised he had always wanted to do.

“Mmm,” he sighed, pressing a kiss to the convenient strip of skin right in front of him, nosing into the short red hair there. They had cleaned up the slightly less human way last night, miracling away sweat and other substances for the sake of expediency, and it had left Crowley’s skin smelling a little different, devoid of the darkly sweet and earthy tones of the various products he used in the shower, more elemental; something sharp and desolate, like woodsmoke and stardust. It was intriguing, and made him wonder how his own scent changed, but mostly he was thinking about Crowley in the shower, rubbing soap all over his naked body, the way his back might look as he sluiced shampoo from his hair. 

And he could do that now, couldn’t he? Ask to watch Crowley in the shower. Maybe even join him. The last time Aziraphale had taken a lover, indoor plumbing hadn’t been (re)invented yet, but he had had one or two encounters in water and there was always something so intoxicating about the slide of wet bodies, the taste of water on another person’s skin. And Crowley had always been the most lovely specimen Aziraphale had ever seen. The image of him laid out naked on the sofa last night would stay with him for--

Oh good Lord! Aziraphale propelled himself backwards faster than a magnet with the wrong polarity. He’d been… _humping_ Crowley, rubbing himself against the silk-clad bottom in front of him like some kind of animal in heat. Which he supposed he was no better than, when he was in this state, but still! He had standards. At least for a little while yet. He’d never been more grateful for Crowley’s propensity to sleep like the as-yet-unresurrected.

And now he was fully awake and the hazy peace of the moment was gone. Their activities last night seemed to have somewhat attenuated the penetrating edge of his affliction, but it wasn’t gone, not by a long shot. Already, he could feel the static prickle building beneath his skin again, the temptation to remain in bed and just _take_ without asking butting up against his more civilised requirement for consent. 

Which all meant it was time to get up and put some distance between them, until Crowley was awake and they could have a conversation about it. Because even though, yes, Aziraphale had agreed to Crowley’s proposition, and no, Crowley hadn’t felt the need to sleep on it, there were still a number of things it would be wise to discuss before proceeding (the thought of doing the actual proceeding itself sent a ripple through him, excitement and nerves and aching desire, a tumble of images and fantasies dropping through him every time his mind turned that way, which was often, he couldn’t wait, _he couldn’t wait_ , but he would).

Crowley had installed a fancy coffee maker in their kitchen on the second day of their moving here, and it worked because Crowley expected it to and Aziraphale politely insisted it must. He set it brewing in absolute confidence that the mug of coffee it produced would stay warm and perfectly scrumptious until Crowley was ready for it. Meanwhile, Aziraphale toasted the crumpets, boiled the kettle for tea for himself, and wondered if he was too far gone yet to try the sudoku on the back of the G2.

*

Crowley woke alone, which wasn’t his favourite way to wake up, but for once he thought he might appreciate the space to collect himself. Besides, Aziraphale’s side of the bed was still warm, and he could hear him somewhere in the house, making far more noise than was necessary, as usual -- things felt a great deal more normal than they had done yesterday.

Yesterday. He’d been dreaming… ngk. He’d been dreaming about Aziraphale eating, the look of sheer transported bliss he could achieve sometimes if a meal was especially good, except Crowley had been the only thing on the menu and it had been… Fffff, it had been really bloody strange, but not in a bad way. He’d woken up with his cock at half-mast, which had certainly never happened before, and was giving him some feelings about the new things his body was suddenly doing after six thousand years of comfortable familiarity, but it didn’t feel _unpleasant_. Just-- just new and-- a lot to take in. Much like last night. 

He rolled onto his back, staring sightlessly at where there was no longer a crack on the ceiling, and tried to sidle at it without getting overwhelmed. Start with the simple facts: Aziraphale had gone down on him, and Crowley had had an orgasm. He was relieved, of course, because of all those slightly nerve-wracking existential reasons that the bloody tea rose had absolutely not been right about (Aziraphale wasn’t going to make him leave, so, nyeh). And part of him was still a little confused about where the reaction had come from, after all this time on Earth and being in love with Aziraphale, even though intellectually he knew what he had told the angel last night was perfectly true -- he couldn’t think of anything he wouldn’t enjoy if it was with a happy angel. And he _had_ liked it -- Christ how he had liked it. The physical part had felt good, yes, but that was almost the least of it. He’d given Aziraphale what he wanted, what he needed, and there was a special kind of intimacy in the giving and receiving of such a thing, an emotional aspect that he hadn’t quite expected. And then there were the hints, the preview really, of Aziraphale in a state of abandon that Crowley had never seen before, and that, that was what sent jolts through his stomach into that low, deep place where his arousal seemed to reside.

Right, well, that was enough introspection for one morning. A glance at the clock told him it was already quite late, and so he rolled to his feet and headed for the en suite.

There was a large mirror over the double vanity, and as the water in the shower slowly came to temperature, Crowley shucked his pyjamas and examined himself. Hair was a bit of a disaster, but nothing unusual there. Body looked mostly the same, pale, freckly, thin. All except for that part between his legs that was still more perky than usual despite the lack of physical stimulation it was getting. 

“What am I supposed to do with this?” he muttered, poking it with a finger. It swayed a bit before coming back to rest just left of centre, faintly ridiculous, still hard. It felt a little foreign, if he were being honest. Again, not bad per se, just... something like the way his own appearance would continue to catch him by surprise even several weeks after changing his hair. The way he’d reach up to idly run his fingers through it and find it shorter than he was expecting, or how he always forgot to put enough shampoo in the first little while after making it grow long. Then again, his hair had never had the tendency to stand at attention all by itself first thing in the morning.

He glanced back at himself in the mirror, and was greeted by the sight of his bedhead.

Actually, nevermind.

It would take a little getting used to, was all. Absolutely worth it. He just hoped he wasn’t going to have to ask Aziraphale to help him figure out how to get his trousers on when it insisted on doing-- this. Should probably try to do something about it, really, and despite the lack of hands-on experience (pun very much intended -- he was still proud of that invention) he was well aware of the traditional way of dealing with an inconvenient erection. Well, the more pleasant way, at least -- while he might be retired, and coming around to the idea that he could, on occasion, do virtuous things just because he wanted to, Crowley was certain that he’d never reach the level of virtue required for a cold shower. Besides, he was curious about whether this would even work by himself, and now seemed like a perfectly good time to find out.

Stepping under the water, he rinsed himself down before wrapping one soapy hand around his cock. It felt… strange, to be touching something that was clearly part of his body, and yet hadn’t been there until yesterday, but no worse than having limbs felt after he’d transformed from being a snake. In fact, it was a little better than that, because limbs were tricky bastards at the best of times (but especially when he’d been slithering about on his belly) whereas this felt actually kind of nice. It fit in his hand with a comfortable sort of weight, and the skin was silky in texture, pleasant to touch, and pleasant to _be_ touched as well. As he stroked himself slowly, moving the foreskin up and down over the head, he wondered how Aziraphale’s cock would look, if it would feel strange to touch his, too. Last night he had been contained, meticulous almost, buttoned up tight and showing nothing off (Crowley had seen him naked before, of course, but it had been a while) -- right up until the very end, when he had held Crowley down and gone at him like a starving man at a feast. That had been-- potent, yeah, that was a word. Even just thinking about how worked up Aziraphale had been was getting his pulse racing again, and he was fully hard now, leaning one-handed against the tiled wall as his other hand sped up.

He thought about how Aziraphale’s mouth had felt on him last night, new nerve endings sparking to life for the first time, a completely new pleasure. Images from his dream came back too, Aziraphale’s face as he enjoyed Crowley to the point of ecstasy, intermingling with the way he’d looked on the couch under the blanket together, blissed out, relaxed and happy. Fuck. If he could get that way just from pleasuring Crowley, how would he react to Crowley’s mouth on _his_ cock?

Oh, but-- shit. He shouldn’t-- shit-- he really shouldn’t-- well obviously he should, he was still a demon, but-- Aziraphale was going to want a lot of sex over the next who-knew how long, and Crowley had no idea what his body’s limits might be in that regard. He should probably hold off. Was that a thing? This type of anatomy had a refractory period, didn’t it? He thought it did. So maybe he should-- stop and-- save it up? 

“Shit. Fuck. _Fuck_ ,” he whispered, squeezing himself a bit in apology. He didn’t want to stop, he realised with something like wonder. It felt good and he was enjoying fantasising about Aziraphale. But he also didn’t want to waste it when Aziraphale probably needed… He shivered, snatching his hand away and turning off the water. 

_Why_ hadn’t he paid more attention at all those orgies Hell had sent him to in Rome? He of all people should’ve valued a bit of extra knowledge. But oh no, instead he’d just spent his time trying to get drunk enough to wipe his memory (probably not actually even possible) and hovering by the snacks wishing Aziraphale were there.

Distractedly he wrapped a towel around his waist and reminded himself that Aziraphale was here now and would probably like nothing better than to provide him with all that missing carnal knowledge. (How had he never known Aziraphale fucked? Would it have made a difference?)

He made his way back into the bedroom just as Aziraphale came in from the hallway, carrying a mug of coffee. Crowley gave it a sideways look as he consulted his wardrobe, moving hangers of mostly-black clothing about in an effort to find something that took his fancy.

“Morning, angel. This going to become a habit?”

Aziraphale gave no response except for a strangled noise, and Crowley abruptly remembered the broken crockery from a couple of mornings ago. He stopped and turned to face him, giving him his full attention.

“Aziraphale? Are you all right?”

“I, um--” the angel said, sounding strained. He’d managed to retain a grip on the mug this time, but by the way he was gawking, it seemed more a matter of luck than anything.

“You, um?”

Aziraphale waved a hand in a vaguely up and down motion, and Crowley stepped forward neatly and took the mug from him before he could slosh its contents all down his front, placing it safely out of the way. 

“You just, um,” Aziraphale tried again, breathless now that Crowley was right in front of him. “You look extremely tempting, my dear.”

“Oh,” Crowley said, understanding dawning. Having this effect on Aziraphale was something else he’d clearly need to get used to, but frankly, this was one part of it he _knew_ he was enjoying the unmitigated hell out of. “Lust is a sin, you know,” he said with his best shit-eating grin.

That earned him a tart look.

Crowley leaned in and kissed the pursed lips. “Don’t look like that,” he murmured. “Pretty sure you won’t get any complaints from this end.”

“We need to talk,” Aziraphale breathed, swaying into him even as he spoke. “About that.”

“If you want to,” Crowley said, draping his bare arms over Aziraphale’s shoulders, “but listen, I got myself into a bit of a situation in the shower just now, and I _don’t know_ how I’m going to get my jeans on without--” he bit his lip, leaning fully into the performance, “dealing with it first. And you know, it occurs to me, there might be sssomeone interested in helping.”

“That’s all, uh, you raise a, um, very persuasive point,” Aziraphale said, licking his lips, then added for good measure, “Foul fiend.” He was already reaching for Crowley’s hips, though. Over his shoulder, Crowley snapped his fingers and the towel fell to the floor. Aziraphale grasped him firmly, soft palms to bare skin, and pulled him into a kiss.

Just as last night, it turned heated very quickly. Aziraphale’s hands were all over him, caressing his back, cradling his face, squeezing his biceps. Humans needed to touch other humans, fact of nature; his and Aziraphale’s bodies were more or less human and so more or less subject to the same requirements, but coming from the cramped, overcrowded and generally overfamiliar pits of Hell, Crowley had always thought he had quite a low threshold for meeting that need. Turned out, after Armadidn’t, that he actually couldn’t get enough when it came to Aziraphale. Amazing really, in hindsight, that he’d never considered how much better it would feel for the angel to touch him without any clothes in the way.

“Hnn, Aziraphale,” he managed between kisses. “Want to-- Can you--”

“What is it?” Aziraphale spoke hotly in his ear, setting off a cascade in his limbs that somehow unlocked all his joints. “You can ask for things, you know,” he said, as Crowley stumbled into him for support. “I want you to.”

“Okay, yeah,” Crowley said into Aziraphale’s shoulder. “Can I undress you?”

Aziraphale’s answer was to sink his fingers into Crowley’s arse and pull their hips flush, rubbing his own very obvious erection against Crowley’s. “Yes I think you’d better,” he gasped. 

Crowley’s hands shook as he unbuttoned Aziraphale’s waistcoat, pulled his shirttails from his waistband. Why were they shaking? They hadn’t yesterday, on the beach. He wasn’t nervous, not any more, and yet his stomach was a jumping, fluttering mess. Excitement, he realised. Anticipation. He _really_ wanted Aziraphale naked, and that was… that was something he could achieve far more easily if he’d just use his brain for a moment.

“Sorry about this,” he muttered, not very sorry at all, and miracled all of Aziraphale’s layers away to the other side of the room.

“Crowley!”

“What?”

Aziraphale took his face in both hands and looked him square in the eyes. “What on Earth were you doing in that shower?”

 _Working myself up into a real state, apparently,_ he thought, but the only sound that came out was a half-choked string of nonsense.

“My dear boy,” Aziraphale said. Crowley had heard those words countless times over thousands of years, but he had never heard them sound so heated. He stumbled again as Aziraphale walked him backwards towards the bed, landing in an inelegant sprawl across the quilt, legs still hanging off the side. “Look at the state of you,” Aziraphale breathed, eyes raking him with a weight that was almost tangible. “Let me take care of you.”

A hand on each thigh, Aziraphale pushed his legs apart and stepped between them, before bending forward, one hand braced against the bedding by Crowley’s head, the other wrapping without further preamble around his cock. 

Crowley gasped, eyes falling closed. It hadn’t felt like this last night. Then, it had been a slow building of pleasure, diligently plotted out and executed by Aziraphale. Now, he was so sensitive that a single touch had him racing towards the same destination before he was ready to get there.

“Wait,” he forced out. The angel’s hand stilled but his eyes flashed, lit from within with something truly terrifying. It only lasted a moment, gone again in the blink of an eye, but it left Crowley scorched and panting, like he’d had a brush with something elemental. 

“What is it?” Aziraphale asked after a beat, blinking rapidly as though to clear his vision. “What do you need?”

“Nothing,” Crowley said, still reeling. “I mean, just. Can you kiss me? Please. While you’re--” he waved weakly at his crotch. 

Aziraphale closed his eyes and shook himself minutely. When he opened them again, he seemed to have cast off whatever it was that had come over him just a moment ago. He looked at Crowley with incredible tenderness, and said, “Yes, love, of course.”

He bent down and gave Crowley a gentle, closed-mouth kiss, before urging him further onto the bed, moving him until he was lying the proper way around, head on the pillows, and then, apparently now to Aziraphale’s satisfaction, he climbed on top of him, took his head in his hands, and kissed him deeply.

Christ, it was glorious. The weight of him, pressing Crowley down into the bed. The wonderful feel of his skin. The give of his flesh when Crowley wrapped his arms around him; the way it overlaid hard muscle and racing heart. He could stay like this for hours, he thought, just letting himself drift on this cloud of comfort and intimacy. Then Aziraphale started rocking into him and time slid away completely.

*

Crowley splayed out on the bed, naked, with his cock already hard for Aziraphale was like something out of the most lurid of his dreams. Crowley underneath him, skin glowing with sweat, cheeks flushed as they moved together, was something completely beyond any fantasy. Dear God, the _noises_ he made, the little grunts and whines, the first tentative explorations of Aziraphale’s body that gradually became more confident.

“What do you want?” Aziraphale murmured, licking delicately around the rim of Crowley’s ear so that he shuddered.

“I-- mmm-- Aziraphale, I have no fucking idea. What-- what do you like?”

“Oh, all sorts,” Aziraphale said, kissing down his neck. “But I want to make this about you while I still can.” 

That moment before, when Crowley had asked him to wait and he had struggled -- that came from a part of him he’d taken great pains to bury over the years, though he’d never be able to cultivate it out completely. These days it only ever came close to the surface when his affliction came upon him, part of the reason he had generally preferred to try to sublimate it in books rather than purge it through congress. It was unnerving to feel so… unrelentingly, unmercifully _divine_. He knew that Crowley seeing that side of him would be unavoidable, but it didn’t mean he wouldn’t still fight it back until he was no longer able.

“Why don’t you tell me what you were thinking about in the shower,” he said against Crowley’s freckled shoulder, before pressing his teeth into the meat of it, giving the lightest of bites.

Crowley’s hips jerked and he groaned. “You,” he said. “Was thinking about you.”

Aziraphale hummed as he licked over the bite. “What about me?”

“Touching -- _ah!_ \-- touching you. Making you feel good.”

Aziraphale paused and reared up onto his elbows so that he could look at Crowley. “You’d like that?” he asked. “To touch me?”

Crowley’s rather fetching flush darkened to an outright blush and Aziraphale’s own face heated in response (which, given the reality of their current positions, he was aware was utterly ridiculous). It wasn’t that he didn’t understand the impulse -- he very much enjoyed bringing pleasure to Crowley, and got a great deal out of it himself, but that was Crowley. This was… well, it was _him._ Soft as he was. Inadequate an angel as he had always been.

“Can I?” Crowley breathed, looking up at him, hands unconsciously kneading the extra flesh on Aziraphale’s back. “You feel amazing.”

Aziraphale nodded wordlessly, and slid to the side when nudged. Crowley rolled onto his side to face him, the same intent expression he sometimes got when watching Aziraphale eat. 

“What do you like?” he asked for the second time. This time, Aziraphale heard the question underneath it, the desire to make him feel good in turn, to take responsibility for his pleasure instead of passively accepting it. That Crowley wanted to learn these things about him, well, it wasn’t as if he didn’t _know_ Crowley loved him. It had been almost a year after all. And yet, there had been so many more years _before_ he had known, that sometimes it was easy to forget what that meant. 

“I, ah, I like a number of things we can work up to. Penetration is a favourite, digital and, and otherwise. I like my testicles to be touched. I like to be teased. My nipples are very sensitive…”

He trailed off as Crowley, with a faint frown of concentration, placed one long-fingered hand on his neck and drew a tantalisingly light path down to his collarbones and chest.

“Teased?” he murmured. “Like this?”

“ _Yes_.”

He parted his fingers around Aziraphale’s nipple, not quite making contact, and Aziraphale groaned.

“I should add,” he said around his heaving breath, “that I don’t know how much teasing I can take _right now_.”

Crowley’s frown melted into a small smile, the one that was mostly in his eyes and always seemed to make him glow. He leaned forward into a lingering kiss as his hand trailed down Aziraphale’s flank to his hip, before reversing direction again.

“I’ve got you, angel,” he said against Aziraphale’s lips, and circled the peak of his nipple with the pad of his thumb.

After that, Aziraphale became quite incoherent. Crowley unleashed a barrage of soft touches that constantly verged on not quite enough, only then to provide relief for just long enough, before withdrawing once more to start again, watching him steadily the whole time. Aziraphale was stripped bare and spoiled, and when Crowley finally, _finally_ took his cock in hand, the other arm sliding beneath his neck to pull him into a consuming kiss, it took hardly any time at all for him to spill across Crowley’s knuckles.

Panting, Crowley drew back slightly to peer between them, stretching his fingers apart to look at the spend, that insatiable curiosity.

“Here,” Aziraphale said, reaching behind him for a tissue from the bedside table, and then, “Shall I do the same for you?”

“Y-- _hnn_ \-- yeah that’d be…”

Aziraphale kissed him through it, because he’d asked to be kissed, and experimented a little with speed and pressure in an attempt to help Crowley figure out what he liked (slow and almost painfully firm, as it happened). When Aziraphale cradled his balls and let one finger apply a bit of pressure just behind them, Crowley’s spine arched like a bow. It didn’t take long at all for Crowley to climax, quite a surprise when compared to their first time, but perhaps Crowley had been closer to the edge in the shower than either of them had realised. He had certainly been eager to initiate things if the sad state of Aziraphale’s clothing was anything to go by. And afterwards, well, there were definite advantages to doing this kind of thing in bed.

“I’m going to need another shower,” Crowley complained, making absolutely no move to disentangle his limbs from Aziraphale’s.

“Well,” Aziraphale consoled him, “this one will be quicker at least. Without the digressions.”

“Digressions?” Crowley spluttered, raising his head up from Aziraphale’s chest. “You mean almost rubbing one out while daydreaming about you?”

Aziraphale's heart jumped, and reached helplessly for Crowley. “My dear, are you trying to fluster me?”

“Yeah and it doesn’t seem to be working,” Crowley said, looking somewhere between put out and delighted.

“Well. Maybe if there were more detail?”

Crowley flopped down again. “Told you everything earlier. S’not like there’s a large repertoire to draw from here, angel.”

Okay, yes, about that. He took a couple of breaths to gird himself. “We really should discuss a few things. Before I spiral completely out of control here.”

“That what’s going to happen?” Crowley asked softly.

“I’m afraid so,” Aziraphale said. “And soon. It comes on quickly and is slow to abate. I… I may become quite single-minded, during the worst of it. I very much care about not hurting you, if I get to that point.”

“If?”

“Nothing is certain.” He sighed, and conceded, “ _When_ is more likely, though.”

The room fell quiet as Aziraphale forced himself to give Crowley time to process that. 

“Earlier you said, penetration,” he said eventually, a little tentatively. “You’re going to want me to fuck you?” 

“I like it a great deal.” Aziraphale nodded. “That, and it can often cause the, ah, symptoms to pass more quickly. Something about the physical act of joining bodies…”

“I, um…” Crowley traced out restless shapes against the skin of Aziraphale’s chest, nails scraping lightly through the hair there in a way that was starting to have an effect. “I’m happy to do whatever you want, angel, but maybe you could, I don’t know, talk me through it first?”

Aziraphale couldn’t help the way his hands clamped down on Crowley, dug into the spare flesh of his back and hip. “I’ll show you, if you like,” he said before he could think about it.

Crowley made one of those involuntary little noises, shifting restlessly as though he didn’t know whether to press forward into Aziraphale, or back into his hands.

“Would you like that, dear boy?” Aziraphale asked, starting to connect certain dots. Crowley had reacted in a similar way to Aziraphale restraining him yesterday, too, he recalled. “Would you like me to hold you down and open you up ready for me? Give it to you slowly, not let you move?”

“ _Angel_ ,” Crowley whined. “Bloody Heaven.”

“Well?”

“Nng. Yeah. Yeah, that sounds good.”

“Very well.” Aziraphale kissed the top of his head. “But shower first. And then we can finish our conversation over lunch.”

With an inarticulate protest, Crowley peeled himself away and struck out for the edge of the bed. When he finally made it to his feet, he looked over his shoulder, a beautiful, rumpled mess, and said, “Join me?”

Aziraphale didn’t need to be asked twice.


	5. Wednesday Afternoon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I sometimes get the feeling that you aren’t taking my existential crisis very seriously, my dear.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to my crack team of betas LylaRivers, Ladiama and mia-ugly <3 Additional thanks to losyana for a particular phrase she fed me, that I have stolen wholesale ;)
> 
> The stars have aligned once more so this chapter can go out a day early again. Enjoy!

Aziraphale became quiet again in the shower. Not withdrawn precisely, but very much in his own head. Crowley arranged him against the tiled wall and let himself enjoy washing his skin, the slick glide of soapy hands, the way he leaned into every touch as though chasing the contact. It wasn’t until Aziraphale shuddered when Crowley rinsed his hair, and he felt the angel’s cock begin to harden again between them, that it occurred to him perhaps Aziraphale was actually overwhelmed and trying to keep himself in check. 

He didn’t like the idea of Aziraphale holding back, although he got why it was happening right now. He just wished he knew what the best response was. Should he keep touching, try to bring him off again? Or leave him what little control he still had for as long as he had it? Aziraphale had always been a creature of strange contradictions, anxious and generous all at once, epicurean and yet so frequently self-denying. He got that, too -- Heaven was terrible. There was a reason Crowley had slunk out of there all those millennia ago. Aziraphale was never permitted much dignity Upstairs, as far as Crowley knew, and he could see how this whole… sex thing could feel like an extension of that. 

He could ask, but. He didn’t want an argument right now.

He should still ask, though. 

As he considered the best way to go about that, his hand began to wander thoughtfully down Aziraphale’s belly. The angel’s breath hitched and he took hold of Crowley’s wrist.

“No?”

“No.”

Aziraphale’s eyes were closed, head tilted back against the tiles, breathing heavily. He did not look like a person who had only just found relief a few minutes ago. Crowley bit his lip, trying to make a decision.

“I want to help you,” he said. There. A statement. No pressure.

“I know darling,” Aziraphale said, voice raspy in a way Crowley had never heard it before. “But we haven’t finished our talk yet, and I…” He took a deep, shaky breath and met Crowley’s eyes. “I am at the top of a very slippery slope. Once I start down it…”

Crowley nodded.

“Talk first. All right, angel.”

*

The clock was well towards lunchtime by the time they got around to it. It was another lovely day and so they sat out on the little patio by the back door, the scent of honeysuckle in the air from the trellis Crowley had nailed up just a month ago. There had been ivy there before, but he hated that weed, the way it couldn’t keep out of your business like the worst kind of nosy neighbour, and so now he was working on something to cover up the damage to the brickwork. There was a clematis over on the other side of the door, covered in a riot of flamboyant purple blooms, and he’d made it quite clear that the two vines were in competition for their survival. He was pleased to see that both had taken the threat seriously and were bringing their A game (unlike that troublesome tea rose).

Aziraphale tried to deflect the inevitable by going off on a tangent about getting some bees, picking disinterestedly at his food, but they did, eventually, talk. It was painfully awkward at times, but Crowley forced himself to sit with it, mulling over boundaries and hypotheticals and safewords as best he was able until Aziraphale was satisfied. Then finally, when that was done, they walked hand-in-hand down the little track that led to the beach, and turned towards the east to follow the coastal footpath. ( _Might be my last chance for a breath of fresh air for a while,_ Aziraphale said with a self deprecating little laugh that Crowley wanted to draw out of him like poison. _)_

They talked idly about the seabirds and wild grasses, the tides and the turning of the seasons, but Aziraphale lost his train of thought often, skin flushed more than the temperature of the day or the level of exertion warranted. They were still less than a mile from home when he stopped abruptly, turning to look out over the cliffs at the sea. Clouds were rolling in on the horizon, steel grey and bruise black, sweeping a curtain of rain beneath them, but from where they stood, the sun was still sparkling on the waves. The whole effect was quite theatrical, something Aziraphale would normally admire aloud, but today he stood letting the wind tousel his hair without comment. 

Crowley watched him in silence for a little while, wishing again that he knew what to do, aching to help.

“Shall we--?” he started, only to stop himself at Aziraphale’s abrupt inhale.

“I’m so sorry,” the angel said, “that you have to go through this with me.”

Crowley was suddenly thrown back in time to those years when he’d worn a corset laced too tightly, ribs constricted, constantly yearning for more air, a deeper breath.

“How many times do I have to tell you that I want to?”

“But you shouldn’t have to.”

“Aziraphale, please,” Crowley tried. “This is pointless.”

“I’m sorry, I know.” Aziraphale sighed, squeezing Crowley’s hand, then flashed him a quick smile. “I don’t know what I ever could have done to deserve you.”

Without warning, Crowley blushed violently. “Ssshut it,” he muttered. “I’m not-- that’s not how it works, anyway. Despite what they might’ve taught you Up There. Love isn’t transactional.”

“ _And thus we live for the if of ever_ ,” Aziraphale recited softly. 

“If you like,” Crowley said mildly. He personally hated that poem, but Aziraphale had always been fond of it. “But at this point I think you’re being a bit ridiculous about the whole thing.”

Aziraphale glanced at him sharply, a rather vinegary look. “I sometimes get the feeling that you aren’t taking my existential crisis very seriously, my dear.”

Crowley grinned, unrepentant. “Just think you’re making a mountain out of a molehill,” he said, inordinately pleased to have shaken Aziraphale out of whatever hole he’d got himself trapped in.

“Hmm,” Aziraphale said, and gave Crowley a once over that left him seared and somewhat less lighthearted. “Well if that’s the case then we had probably just as well go home.”

*

They were coming through the garden gate when the rain started, racing up the hill behind them with an audible _shh_ before pelting them heavily with fat, stinging drops. Crowley dragged him by the hand, whooping and laughing, until they washed up, breathless, in the kitchen. 

Aziraphale gazed at him in slightly stupefied wonder, drenched, a little windswept, _incandescent_. He wanted desperately to kiss him before realising that he could, in fact, do just that.

Crowley made a muffled sound, arms windmilling with the force of the impact, before seeming to catch up with current events and relaxing into it. He pushed his sunglasses up into his hair and draped his arms over Aziraphale’s shoulders, letting Aziraphale hold him close, perfectly happy to be plundered like this. (Aziraphale loved it, he loved it.)

“I want you,” Aziraphale said against his mouth, a heated whisper that came out with the force of a confession.

“I know,” Crowley replied gently. “You can have me.”

“Oh _God_ , Crowley,” Aziraphale said, anguished. “Bedroom. Now.”

And then… Crowley was pulling at his bow tie, a look of immense satisfaction crossing his features as he slid it loose… Crowley was nimbly undoing his shirt buttons... Aziraphale shook himself and tried to focus… They were in the bedroom, his wet outer layers gone, and he didn’t remember how they’d got there from the kitchen. Lapses in time were a sign that things were intensifying, his ethereal centre trying to push to the surface of his human corporation. His skin was on fire, every little accidental brush of knuckles as Crowley undressed him leaving a cool trail of relief in its wake.

Crowley leaned in to kiss his cheek and Aziraphale broke.

“Oh, touch me, _touch me_ ,” he gasped, and Crowley did, pushing his shirt from his shoulders and wrapping him up with big hands, long arms. Crowley was naked, clothes in a haphazard pile at his feet (when had that happened? Another lapse) and the sensation of such a wealth of skin against his own was a blessed relief.

“How do you want me?” Crowley asked the skin behind his ear, easing his way down the side of Aziraphale’s neck with a series of sweet, close-mouthed kisses.

For a moment Aziraphale struggled to parse the question, caught up in holding Crowley to him more tightly than was probably comfortable, fingers digging furrows into the spare flesh of his body, one ankle curled around his. Separating seemed an impossibility, he could quite happily rub off against Crowley just like this, with tiny, lucent movements. But to go forward in the way he needed, they had to do this, and so he forced himself to speak.

“H-hands and knees is probably easiest for the first time.”

“Okay,” Crowley said, and Aziraphale wasn’t so far gone that he couldn’t hear the hesitation in his voice. “On-- on the bed?”

He disentangled himself to get in position and at the loss of contact, Aziraphale ignored his atoms screaming. 

Crowley stood by the bedside, bent slightly with fingertips on the quilt, one knee up on the edge of the mattress, and ah, there was the hesitation again. This didn’t seem to scan with his reaction earlier, when Aziraphale had promised to hold him down and finger him until he was ready to be fucked. But then, reality so often differed from fantasy. He should’ve thought of that -- would have, if he weren’t so abominably distracted by his own reactions.

Aziraphale reached out to touch the wooden footboard, grounding himself before he spoke. “Is something wrong?” 

Crowley tensed, and it was fascinating to see it in the flesh. As it were. The way his lithe muscles bunched, his shoulders drew up, the tightening that was evident even in his low back and buttocks. He really was a work of art, and Aziraphale focussed intently on that, instead of the gnawing terror that Crowley was about to back out of something Aziraphale wasn’t sure he could let go of.

“I’m sorry,” Crowley said, turning his face towards Aziraphale without directly looking at him. “It’s the-- it’s too-- I can’t, not like this.”

“Okay,” Aziraphale said, reminding himself to breathe. Everything felt better if one simply remembered to breathe. “Okay… No, that’s completely all right, my dear. Let’s, ah, why don’t you sit here and I’ll…”

He arranged Crowley to sit on the edge of the bed, parting his thighs so that he could step between them, something familiar from the morning. He threaded his fingers through Crowley’s hair and pet him like that until he started to relax again, then leant down and kissed him, because that was the one preference Crowley had yet expressed out loud.

“I’m going to kiss you and touch you a little bit. Nothing new yet I promise, but you’ll tell me if you don’t like it of course.”

Crowley nodded, resting his hands on Aziraphale’s hips.

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “Urgh, that was stupid. I just…”

“Not stupid at all,” Aziraphale said. “It’s a very exposed position, lacking in intimacy. I should’ve thought of that.”

“Amazed you’re thinking of anything besides the obvious right now,” Crowley said, lightly teasing with tone and -- _oh_ \-- the brush of fingers up Aziraphale’s shaft.

Taking a leaf out of Crowley’s book from the morning, Aziraphale snapped his fingers to miracle away the trousers and underthings that made up the remainder of his clothing, buried one hand in the back of Crowley’s hair, and pulled his head back to sink into a kiss. With his other hand he reached down to cup Crowley between the legs, cradling his balls, rubbing the soft skin between his thumb and forefinger in the way Crowley had liked earlier, before gently coaxing his cock to full hardness.

_“You may not be able to keep up,” Aziraphale said over the lunch he was distressingly uninterested in eating. “Once I, ah, get going.”_

_“Is it a competition?” Crowley asked, quirking an eyebrow at him. “Are we going to put a chalkboard up on the wall? Notches on the bedpost?”_

_“Ha ha,” Aziraphale said. “What I’m trying to say is, there will almost certainly be times when I-- when I want to have you, and you won’t be in the mood. I need to know in advance what your boundaries are, there.”_

_And it was so hard to ask these things, not just for the incipient humiliation that kept trying to creep in the back door of his subconscious, but also because Crowley clearly_ didn’t know _, and so anything he said now was at best an educated guess. Still, it was better than nothing. It had to be._

_Crowley looked away from him, out into the garden. “Does it hurt? Sex, I mean.”_

_“I assume you’re referring to penetration,” Aziraphale corrected gently. “You’ve already had sex. Twice.” He couldn’t help the small smile at Crowley’s scrunched up nose, the look he always saved for Aziraphale’s linguistic pedantry. “And no, if done correctly, it shouldn’t cause pain, though there can sometimes be discomfort if the receiving party isn’t aroused.”_

_Crowley stroked a finger up his throat and under his chin, a very familiar gesture that meant he was thinking hard about something, but was now giving Aziraphale thoughts in only one direction._

_“Yeah,” he said after not very long at all. “I’m fine with that, angel. Honestly, you can use me however you need.”_

_And yes, okay, there wasn’t really much Aziraphale could do that would cause Crowley injury, given their bodies’ habits of healing themselves without any conscious input, but still, the easy way he just offered everything to Aziraphale... It was… something he barely had words for. And beyond that, it was (he swallowed heavily) giving him the kind of reaction that made him glad for the garden table that was blocking Crowley’s view of his lap._

Aziraphale stroked Crowley until he was breathing hard with it, letting out little grunts and whimpers, shivering with Aziraphale’s teeth on his earlobe, the drag of a thumb over his nipple. He worked his free hand down, tender caresses to Crowley’s ribs, his belly, before brushing the lightest of touches behind his balls, his own desire leaping at Crowley’s soft _ah!_ and all the while reminding himself that it was okay if Crowley didn’t get off on this. It was okay if it didn’t bring him to orgasm. His job was to make it as comfortable as possible -- everything else was pure hope and completely out of his control.

“Lean back for me on your elbows,” Aziraphale murmured into his neck. “That’s it, very good.”

Crowley’s exhalation was more powerful this time, enough that Aziraphale noticed it.

“You’re doing so well,” he said deliberately, and Crowley’s cock jumped in his hand. “You like it when I praise you,” he observed.

“Yyy-- nnn--” Crowley grappled with his vocal chords. “Apparently.”

“You’re wonderful, my darling,” Aziraphale said with very pointed adoration. “You’re being so good for me.”

“ _Aziraphale.”_ A pulse of precome beaded at the tip of Crowley’s cock and Aziraphale smeared it with his thumb, thrilling with the discovery and the reaction it brought. He leant over a little further, bracing himself on one hand over Crowley’s reclining body, and slowly let his hand descend.

“I’m going to touch your anus now,” he murmured, nuzzling into Crowley’s neck. “Just touching, until you’re ready for more.”

Aziraphale kissed down to his clavicles, held in sharp relief, and brushed a finger over Crowley’s hole.

“That is--” Crowley’s voice shook. “That is such an unsexy word.”

“And you’re the authority on that, obviously.”

“Obviously.”

“Perhaps you have a suggestion for an alternative, then?”

But Crowley had lost the battle to articulate again, and collapsed fully onto the bed, hands coming up to clench Aziraphale’s shoulders.

“You lovely thing,” Aziraphale said, pushing one of Crowley’s thighs up as he raised his own knee to the bed. “How does it feel?”

“Nnnng, yeah. You can-- you can put it in me. If you want.”

Aziraphale bit his lip against the rush of molten lust that shot through him, and tried to concentrate on the necessary steps to achieving that end. They had no lube, of course, caught on the back foot as he had been, and the kitchen was too far away. Aziraphale quickly snapped his fingers instead, instructing them to be slicked up with a generous amount of something appropriate.

“Breathe, darling,” Aziraphale murmured as he pushed the first finger in. “It feels rather strange at first but there’s a spot inside -- ah, there.” He watched in satisfaction as Crowley’s face became slack with pleasure. The rim of muscle at his entrance fluttered and Aziraphale couldn’t help but rear back up to watch the obscene show. He was sweating now, hot runnels down his back, desperate, desperate to-- but he wouldn’t rush this, not the first time. Crowley clearly needed him to go slowly and more importantly, Aziraphale _wanted_ to take care of him. As much as he was able. God, when this was all over, what he wouldn’t give for a whole night to indulge in this, bringing Crowley pleasure, discovering his preferences, the slow torture of denying himself while Crowley writhed and sweated on the bed. 

Who knew if that would ever happen? Aziraphale forced his wandering mind back to the present.

He bent and kissed Crowley’s belly, tasted his skin with the flat of his tongue. “Do you feel ready for more?”

“Yeah, I th-- yes,” Crowley said, and Aziraphale pushed a second finger into him while taking the head of his cock into his mouth to soothe away any discomfort. Crowley yelped at the sudden stimulation, performing that strange shimmy again in which his body seemed torn about whether to pull away or push forward.

“Too much?” Aziraphale asked, pulling off to look up at him. Crowley was covered in a fine sheen of sweat now, nipples taut, face flushed, hair dishevelled, and just the sight of him, good Heavens, Aziraphale wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold on.

“Nnn-no,” Crowley stammered. “A bit. Don’t stop.”

With a groan, Aziraphale fell to his task, devouring Crowley’s cock messily as he slowly thrust into him with his fingers. When he pressed his thumb into Crowley’s perineum he let out a truly indecent noise, and Aziraphale abruptly reached his limit.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I have to--” he gasped, quickly slicking his cock with another small miracle. It barely needed the help, already dripping with precome.

“Okay, yeah,” Crowley nodded, pushing himself back up onto his elbows. “I’m ready.”

Trembling with urgency, Aziraphale hoisted Crowley’s legs over his shoulders rather more roughly than he would’ve liked, though Crowley made no complaint, watching him avidly, and Aziraphale remembered hazily that along with the praise, he’d responded quite well to the manhandling, too.

“Can you kiss me like this?” he asked as Aziraphale took himself in hand to line them up.

“Depends how -- _mmph_ \-- how flexible you are,” he replied, pushing past the initial resistance as slowly as he could stand.

“ _Fuck,_ ” Crowley hissed. “Very f-flexible.”

“Oh God,” Aziraphale cursed, words falling out of his mouth like water. “Oh Crowley, is this okay? Please tell me this is okay. I’m going to-- I need to--”

“Yeah,” Crowley panted. “Feels-- feels okay. Feels fine.”

It was permission enough. Aziraphale closed his eyes and thrust shakily into Crowley’s body. He felt hot inside, some part of him knew that, but the deeper sensation of connecting this way was like a cooling balm on sore muscles. He couldn’t speak, could only act, clinging to Crowley’s arse as he held him at just the right height to fuck into him as carefully as he could, holding on to that tiny semblance of control by a thread.

Crowley was quiet, ankles crossed behind Aziraphale’s neck, eyes closed in a look more of concentration than rapture. Right, yes, make it good for him too, Aziraphale reminded himself frantically, and lifted his hips a little, searching for the right angle. He managed to draw a single startled, guttural _nng!_ out of Crowley, yellow eyes flying open in surprise, before his release barrelled down on him without warning.

Spine arching with the force of it, he threw his head back, hips jerking erratically as he made all manner of unseemly noises. And the pleasure, dear _God_ , it was all consuming. Quite miraculous that he managed to stay upright, really.

Crowley’s hand in his hair made him realise he hadn’t, in fact, managed to stay all that upright after all. Opening his eyes, Crowley was close enough to kiss, and so Aziraphale kissed him, tremblingly, and even though the poor dear was bent almost double, still hard and untended, still impaled on Aziraphale’s cock, he made no sound of complaint, just a pleased little hum at the artless press of Aziraphale’s mouth to his.

“So is that it?” he asked after a moment. “You’re all done?”

“No,” Aziraphale said, verging on hysteria, his cock still hard and very much in favour of an encore. “No I’m really not.”

“Okay good,” Crowley breathed, flopping back into the bedding. “Because that was just getting interesting.”

Aziraphale pressed his temple against Crowley’s knee, groaning softly. “I love you.”

“Love you too,” Crowley said with a flicker of a soft smile. “S’okay, angel, it felt good, especially right before the end there, whatever it was you did.” He touched Aziraphale lightly on his overheated cheek. “Love watching your face when you lose it.”

Aziraphale’s hips had begun thrusting again, apparently of their own accord, and he let out a helpless little laugh at that. “You’ll get plenty of opportunity, my dear.”

“I know,” Crowley said, looking unbearably smug, and so Aziraphale took hold of his cock and found that perfect angle again, and set about putting a different look entirely on his face.

Afterwards -- and it wasn’t very long afterwards, because any semblance of stamina had apparently deserted Aziraphale, but at least he had managed to last long enough to take Crowley with him this time -- afterwards, Crowley rolled over into Aziraphale’s side and promptly fell asleep. For a while it was lovely, the urges of his affliction temporarily sated, letting him drift in physical and emotional satisfaction. But the drizzling-grey day was barely beginning to edge towards drizzling-grey evening before the _thoughts_ came back, and while he would like nothing better than to roll Crowley over, all soft and pliant with sleep, and slide back into him where he was probably still loose and slick, he’d neglected to bring sleep-fucking to the table during the conversation earlier. Despite Crowley’s confident “use me however you need”, that was not something he was prepared to let himself do without explicit agreement first.

And so he got up, and let his body lead him through something familiar because his brain was really no help right now. Somehow he ended up in a bubble bath, which was soothing enough he supposed, although possibly still too close to Crowley for safety. He made no attempt to move further afield, however. There was no point, really. The house was large enough for them to coexist peacefully but it could never be large enough to get away completely. He wouldn’t want it to be. And besides, now that he’d had this, he would always be drawn back to Crowley until the affliction passed.

But not just yet. Let his dearest one sleep uninterrupted for a little longer.

*

The wind blew a spatter of raindrops against the window panes, and Crowley woke up. He was aching a little in his legs, and _between_ his legs, and Aziraphale was in the bathroom by the sound of it instead of beside him in bed, but all in all he was pretty content: sleep-drunk and pleasantly worn out. Hmm, yeah, things had gone all right earlier. The start had been… a bit embarrassing. A bit disappointing, even, given how much he’d liked the _thought_ of it. But Aziraphale had fixed it quickly, and what was a bit of creative bending to getting to watch Aziraphale come, really?

This thing that Aziraphale was going through was powerful. He’d said as much and it wasn’t as though Crowley hadn’t believed him, but seeing it for himself was another matter. The way Aziraphale had almost tried to climb into him when they first came upstairs, squash their atoms together somehow and merge into one. He’d shocked himself a little with how much he liked being needed like that. But even so, there was an edge to it all, a sense of something just starting to become visible from the shadows. It crackled and spat, he could see it in Aziraphale’s eyes, his desperation like an open fire, a naked flame, hot and dangerous.

Some part of him (the fireproof part) rather liked that, too.

The sound of splashing brought his attention back to the bathroom and he stumbled up in search of Aziraphale. Weird angelic mating urge or not, Crowley had been deprived of his waking-up cuddles one too many times in recent days and he was going to do something about it.

He found Aziraphale in the bath, pink-skinned and well-steamed, looking about as drowsy as Crowley and extremely embraceable. 

“Up,” Crowley said, squinting against the bright light. He gestured vaguely and the light dimmed (it didn’t have the type of bulb that could actually do that, but Crowley wasn’t interested in excuses).

“Why?” Aziraphale asked, giving him an adorably sleepy little pout. “I’ll just want to have sex again and I’m comfortable.”

“Not--” Crowley flapped a hand. “Not _out_. Forward.”

Rolling his eyes, Aziraphale pulled himself up to sitting and let Crowley slip in behind him, still naked from earlier. Then, quickly relinquishing his grudge, the angel settled back against him with a series of happy little noises.

“Oh, all right then, this _is_ rather nice,” he admitted, wiggling contentedly. Crowley winced and worked a hand between them to adjust himself, unused to having anything there to be squashed.

"What are you doing in here?" he asked when he was comfortable again.

"Trying not to think about--" Aziraphale waved a hand in the direction of the bedroom. 

"Poor angel, is it bad?"

He sighed. "I wanted you again almost immediately. It's definitely getting worse. I’m afraid I was rather close to stepping over a line,” he said quietly. 

“While I was asleep?” Crowley asked. Aziraphale nodded, and Crowley couldn’t really see his face but he could practically feel the shame radiating from him.

He stroked Aziraphale’s pink-skinned arm. “You could, you know. I wouldn’t mind.” The muscles beneath his fingers bunched.

“I really don’t think you should give me such carte blanche, Crowley.”

“Why not?” Crowley asked softly, pressing a kiss to damp angelic curls. “It’s not forever and I hate the thought of you lying there suffering.” Aziraphale made a noncommittal noise as though his distress meant nothing. “Look, angel, I really wouldn’t mind, but if it matters to you, feel free to wake me up.” Aziraphale tensed again, getting ready to demure if Crowley was any judge, and he cut it off with a light squeeze. “Don’t want to fight about it. Just know that the offer’s there.”

There was a long pause, and then Aziraphale sagged. “Thank you,” he whispered.

Crowley wound his arms around Aziraphale’s chest and held him tightly, but instead of one of his wiggles, or a happy sigh, the angel’s hands twitched into claws where they had been resting on Crowley’s legs, and he made a pained little keening sound. It was starting to become familiar.

"Let me help you,” Crowley murmured, lips moving against Aziraphale’s temple as he spoke.

“Now?” Aziraphale asked, already breathless, half-turning to look at him. “Are you sure?”

“At some point you’re going to have to stop asking me that,” Crowley said, giving him a quick peck on the corner of his mouth. “Just lie back, angel. Leave it to me.”

“Mmm,” Aziraphale sighed, settling again. “Well, if you insist.”

Crowley smiled to himself, happy that this second offer at least was easily accepted; there was something about the exchange that reminded him of their old flirtations. Not that Aziraphale wasn’t serious about seeking Crowley’s permission to bring him off in the bath, but it was markedly more light-hearted than the first part of the conversation had been. And Aziraphale always did like being talked into something he’d already decided he wanted.

The bathtub was generous in size, perfectly able to accommodate the both of them comfortably, even with Aziraphale bracketed between Crowley’s knees as he was. He still wasn’t really sure what he was doing, but it also seemed apparent that Aziraphale didn’t need a great deal of coaxing in his current condition, and so he simply decided to please himself for a time, stroking his hands along the soft skin of Aziraphale’s arms, rubbing his fingers in the valleys between his knuckles, cupping his chin and urging his head back so Crowley could kiss the lines of his forehead.

Eventually his fingers found their way to Aziraphale’s nipples, and they immediately drew tight, the angel’s soft gasps and hitches coming suddenly harder.

“ _Yes,_ ” Aziraphale groaned. “Oh Crowley that feels di--”

“Are you going to say divine?” he interrupted, letting his fingers fall still in retaliation.

“No, no, of course not,” Aziraphale corrected quickly. “Definitely infernal. Very demonic.”

“I should hope so,” Crowley said, gently worrying the shell of Aziraphale’s ear with his teeth, giving his nipples a light pinch. Aziraphale cried out, arching up into the touch. Crowley saw the tip of his cock break the surface of the water, red and swollen, and had to touch him, simply couldn’t resist. “Still want to be teased, angel?” he asked as he wrapped a loose fist around him.

“Don’t--” Aziraphale whined. “Don’t make me--” He didn’t seem able to finish.

“You want me to decide for you, is that it?” Crowley spoke low and straight into his ear. “Use my initiative?”

“Y-yes. Darling, please,” he begged, jerking helplessly into Crowley’s lax grip.

“All right,” Crowley said, and hooked his legs over Aziraphale’s knees, spreading him open, one hand cradling his balls the way Crowley had liked earlier, the other taking him more firmly in hand. “Come further up,” he instructed, and latched onto Aziraphale’s neck when he did. 

Water was sloshing everywhere but the tub never seemed to empty. Aziraphale moaned and writhed on top of him, hands gripping the roll-top sides, as Crowley stroked him with an even hand and whispered temptation in his ear. “I know you love this,” and, “You can have it, angel. As much as you like,” and, “Feels good, doesn’t it?” and, “Take it, love. Take what you want.”

Loving Aziraphale’s unrestrained cries, he let his curiosity lead him to rubbing that sensitive place behind his balls, trying a light, tickling caress before applying more pressure. Aziraphale let out a string of loud sounds of pleasure that curled hot and tight in the pit of Crowley’s belly, stoking something he didn’t think he had the energy to see through, but felt good nonetheless. 

“Crowley, ah! _Ah!_ _Yes_ , like that.”

Crowley’s fingers brushed the edge of his hole and Aziraphale bucked violently, almost incoherent now, begging Crowley to touch him. And so he did -- slow, exploratory caresses around the rim that made Aziraphale wild, applying pressure with the flat of his fingers, and finally, with a surprising hit of demonic glee, pushing the very tip of one finger just inside. Aziraphale shuddered, and tensed, and came spectacularly over his belly and chest, and continued to shudder and emit small little spurts for quite some time.

“Better?” Crowley asked, pressing kisses across his cheek.

“Oh, yes,” Aziraphale sighed. “Thank you my dear.” He squirmed a little, getting comfortable again. “Do you need anything?”

“No, I’m fine,” Crowley said. He wasn’t disinterested, but it’d take some effort and, well, it could wait. He was perfectly happy for now.

Aziraphale sighed again, becoming boneless in Crowley’s arms. “Do you know, I actually think I could sleep.”

“Best done in a bed, that,” Crowley said.

“You’re a wicked liar,” Aziraphale said, and Crowley could hear the smile in his voice. “I know full well you used to sleep on your ceiling in your old place.”

“Eh, s’what happens when you buy a bed for its looks.” He nuzzled shamelessly into Aziraphale’s damp hair. “Besides, you’re there now. Much more appealing.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said softly, pulling Crowley’s arms even tighter around him, and holding on. He didn’t need to say any more than that; Crowley understood perfectly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale quotes the Michael S. Glaser poem _A Poem Ending In The Preposition 'With'_ , specifically:
> 
> and thus we live for the if of ever  
> wondering always whether
> 
> we have failed again  
> or have somehow earned
> 
> what was always here to begin  
> with.


	6. Thursday, and so on

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “This is not what I had in mind when I brought you breakfast in bed,” Crowley said, somewhere between outrage and intrigue. Meanwhile, Aziraphale continued to slather him in butter and jam and spent a great deal of time and attention licking it back off again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a much more short notice beta than previous chapters, so extra big thanks to mia-ugly, Ladiama and LylaRivers for their help <3
> 
> It's been hinted at in earlier chapters but just to be explicitly clear, this chapter involves sex with an unconscious partner. Everyone is consenting, but please take care if this is a sensitive subject for you. I've updated the tags to reflect this.

_**Thursday, and so on** _

Crowley awoke in the middle of the night, not to the sound of Aziraphale’s pottering, but to the angel’s distress. Scrubbing his face, Crowley rolled over to find him on the far edge of the mattress, tangled in the quilt and whimpering as though having a nightmare.

Frowning, Crowley reached out to touch him, a hand between his shoulder blades, and immediately flinched back. Heat and -- something like a static discharge, a shot of something cold and sharp that crackled across his skin and wormed its way between his atoms to the occult core of him. That was... Aziraphale had said he might sleep, and sleep deeply, but he’d never mentioned built-in demon-repellent. Then again, he presumably hadn’t done this with a demon before.

Maybe something about Crowley’s nearness provoked it? That sat uncomfortably, but… Not his fault. He told himself that forcefully until he believed it. And then, with the kind of bloody-mindedness that’d seen him through six millennia of loving an angel in secret, he tried touching again. There was still a tingle, not exactly unpleasant just -- there. Nothing as dramatic as before, though, and he had a brief idea of storms and lightning rods before Aziraphale whimpered again and Crowley forgot all that in favour of sliding up behind him and pulling him back against his chest.

“Angel,” he called softly, working a hand beneath the hem of his pyjama top. Aziraphale didn’t respond, but the touch of skin on skin, as before, seemed to bring him relief, and he sagged back into the curve of Crowley’s body, fitting himself to every bend and question mark. Crowley shushed softly into his hair and rubbed slow circles on his belly, silky soft skin, lightly furred in counterpoint. He was burning up, though. The small, reptilian part of Crowley shuddered in satisfaction, but rationally he recognised it as the dry heat that spoke of sickness, and Crowley recalled with sympathy that Aziraphale referred to this as his ‘affliction.’ 

Then Aziraphale twitched a little in his embrace, and the inside of Crowley’s forearm brushed across his groin. He was painfully hard, his trousers sticky with it.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Crowley whispered, kissing the back of his burning neck. He pressed the flat of his hand against the angel’s hardened flesh and Aziraphale arched into it. “Angel,” he tried again. “Aziraphale. Wake up.”

There was no response besides the angel’s pained and desperate sounds. Was he dreaming? Delirious? It was hard to tell. Crowley still had his hand over the angel’s pyjama-clad cock, and Aziraphale had said he wanted Crowley to take the initiative, but… like this? Aziraphale had been so concerned about Crowley’s consent that somehow his own had gone by the wayside when they had talked about it a couple of hours ago in the bath. The way Aziraphale was bucking up against him, he was practically doing the job for himself, but that didn’t grant permission. 

“ _Aziraphale_.” Biting his lip, Crowley shook him by the shoulder, and finally Aziraphale gave an agonised groan. 

“Crowley, please.” 

“You want me to--?” He squeezed Aziraphale’s erection demonstratively.

“Yes, yes, God yes, please,” Aziraphale gasped, a tumble of words still thick with sleep, but lucid enough. “You don’t have to ask, just _please.”_

Untying the drawstring one-handed, Crowley loosened the waistband of Aziraphale’s trousers and took hold of his cock. He was even hotter here, a furnace, the dry desert sun on the sand. Crowley’s tongue forked with the sudden sense-memory of heat on his scales, breath coming out of him in a hiss. When he began to stroke, Aziraphale let loose a string of incoherent noises, a strange mixture of frantic and relieved. 

Crowley licked up the shell of his ear, and got a jolt of heightened smell from his long-dormant snake senses, sweat and arousal and _angel_.

“Hush, love,” he soothed. “I’ve got you. It’s okay now. I’ve got you.”

He pumped Aziraphale quickly, purposefully, snaking his free hand up Aziraphale’s chest to worry a nipple. Aziraphale reached back to clamp one hand over Crowley’s hip, and came with a wordless cry. Crowley gentled him through it, then held him as he recovered, some of the unnatural heat leaching from him at last, and when he made no move to do it for himself, pulled up a miracle to clean him.

“You daft twit,” Crowley said softly into Aziraphale’s hair. “Don’t wait so long next time.”

There was no response. Aziraphale had fallen once more into a deep sleep.

He was still asleep when Crowley woke again for the morning. Unusual, but not especially worrisome given what Aziraphale had told him to expect, and so he took the opportunity to bask for a bit, lying on his back with Aziraphale’s head on his shoulder, rhythmic puffs of hot breath warming his neck. He was half-hard again, and he didn’t know whether that was just going to be a morning thing now, or the result of bringing Aziraphale off twice without touching himself, or just that the angel was near, but it was a pleasant sort of background buzz, and not anything he felt the urgent need to deal with.

Outside the rain was still coming, good old English summer, and the feather duvet was like a well-insulated cloud enveloping the two of them. It was very cosy, he was loath to get up, but at the same time, his ever-present impulse to spoil Aziraphale was kicking into overdrive, and the poor angel hadn’t eaten properly in days. Maybe breakfast in bed was what was called for.

When he came back, tray of toast and jam and freshly brewed tea in hand, Aziraphale was just stirring, and so Crowley put it on his bedside table and got back under the covers with him. 

“Good morning,” he said, kissing Aziraphale softly. The angel sighed and melted into him, deepening the kiss into something wet and lazy. 

“Mmm,” Aziraphale sighed, pulling him close until they were flush. “I had the most wonderful dream.”

“Yeah?” said Crowley, running tender fingers through the soft cloud of rumpled hair. “Was I in it?”

“Oh yes,” said Aziraphale, with a sleepy smile that still somehow managed to look lascivious. Christ, Crowley could eat him whole like this. He’d never seen this particular combination of sweetly befuddled and horny on Aziraphale before, some of the urgency of the night apparently burned off for now, and it could very easily become addictive. Aziraphale kissed him again, and his hips were moving with an uncalculated restlessness that made the hard line of his arousal unmistakable. Without thinking, Crowley urged Aziraphale’s legs apart with his thigh, giving him something to grind against, hands sinking into the ample flesh of his bottom to drag him closer. The angel moaned decadently and pushed Crowley flat onto his back before straddling him. That was all it seemed to take, Aziraphale moving him around like he weighed nothing, Aziraphale sitting on his lap and pinning him to the bed with his bodyweight -- Crowley was hard again, now, too. 

“ _Very_ good morning,” Crowley said, grinning up at Aziraphale. In the grey light filtering in through the curtains, somehow he shone. And then he was snapping his fingers to make their pyjamas disappear. And then he was interlacing their fingers and holding Crowley’s hands down above his head.

“Is this all right?” Aziraphale asked, voice muffled as he did something to Crowley’s neck that made him shudder and break out in gooseflesh.

“Very,” Crowley gasped, hips trying to jerk up into the solid weight on top of him. “Very much all right.”

Aziraphale moved up to his ear and bit the lobe, before sucking _hard_ and whispering hotly, “I want you inside me.”

“ _Christ_ ,” Crowley spluttered, hips stuttering fruitlessly again. “Yeah -- yes -- how do you…?”

“Like this.” He released one of Crowley’s hands and reached between them, and when he took Crowley’s cock in his hand it was already coated in lubricant. Crowley groaned at the feel of it, the smooth, hot glide, and was about to summon a miracle of his own to coat his fingers when Aziraphale raised up on his knees and positioned Crowley at his entrance.

“Wait, don’t you want--?” he tried, but his voice broke off into a pathetic croak at the look of stunned pleasure on Aziraphale’s face. He could feel the angel using the slick head of his cock to tease his own hole open. He didn’t know what to do with his legs, his toes, the whole ungainly length of himself that wanted to flex and writhe. “ _Aziraphale.”_

“Fingers aren’t always necessary, my dear,” Aziraphale said distractedly, a look of concentration and rapture settling on his face. “Sometimes I prefer it without.”

With slow, luxuriant rolls of his hips, Aziraphale worked himself open on Crowley’s cock, sweating and pink-cheeked and biting his lip. Crowley felt it the moment he pushed past the ring of muscle and was overwhelmed by _tight_ and _hot_ and the look of sheer bliss on Aziraphale’s face. Every tiny movement Aziraphale made as he slowly took him in seemed magnified, fraught and wild and slow, so unexpectedly slow.

“Fuck,” Crowley hissed as Aziraphale finally bottomed out and came to rest in his lap, lower lip still caught beneath his teeth. “Give me that.”

Scissoring up, Crowley licked at the line of Aziraphale’s teeth where they sank into his own skin, and the angel opened up for him so sweetly. Which made it all the more surprising when a few seconds later he pushed Crowley none-too-gently back into the mattress, resumed his grip on his hands, and breathed, “Now, darling. Be good for me, won’t you?”

*

Aziraphale had had a lot of sex over the course of his six millennia on Earth. Not as much, perhaps, as he could have had, if he’d had a mind to, but enough. He knew what good sex felt like, and he knew it wasn’t necessarily related to one’s level of fondness for one’s partner, and all the same he had never _made love_ before Crowley. It was spectacular. 

The watery morning light somehow only enhanced the contrasts of Crowley’s body, the bright palette of his hair, the vivid loveliness of his eyes, nipples flushed dark, lips bitten red. And he was good, he was being so good, and Aziraphale told him so and thrilled every time at his helpless reaction to the praise, to the restraint, as Aziraphale slowly sank into the heat-haze and let it take over them both.

He came on a sigh, untouched except for the occasional brush against Crowley’s heaving belly, and sat back, trembling, to admire the mess he’d made of Crowley’s skin. Hands released, Crowley sank them into Aziraphale’s hips, and Aziraphale let himself be guided up and down Crowley’s shaft, shivering with aftershocks and delighting in Crowley’s tangible desire for him. His face, when he crested the wave, was a vision of pure loveliness, eyes screwed shut, brow furrowed, mouth parted on a silent cry. Reaching for him, Aziraphale gathered him up, and they sat for a time amid the rumpled bedding, Crowley’s face buried in his chest as Aziraphale stroked his limp hair off his forehead, until Crowley softened and slipped out of him.

“Listen, angel,” Crowley said eventually, nose still buried in Aziraphale’s chest hair. “About last night.”

Aziraphale paused in thought, unable for a moment to pinpoint precisely what Crowley was referring to, before the memory slipped into place. 

“You did wonderfully,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry I wasn’t--” 

Crowley’s sharp look was enough to silence him. “Nope. No. No more of that. Don’t want to hear it, angel. This is happening, we’re enjoying it, end of.”

Aziraphale’s heart fluttered. It still shocked him, sometimes, the depth of his love for this being.

“Yes, well,” he said a little cautiously, testing out his nerve for this uniquely sensitive topic. “I did rather enjoy it, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“You remember it then?”

“Mostly. I think.” It was a little warped, red-tinged with heat, but he thought he had the gist of it. And it _had_ been wonderful, to ache so badly and be taken care of so lovingly. 

“So, uh.” Crowley looked up at him briefly before his gaze skittered away. “That thing that happened when I touched you...?”

“Oh?” That he didn’t recall.

“Yeah. Bit like a static shock, only -- only directed at my demon parts. And then, after it -- earthed? -- you still felt a bit prickly to touch. Anyone ever mention that, before?”

“No, I…” Aziraphale frowned. What Crowley was describing was very much how it felt to him when the affliction was on him, but he’d never had a partner who could perceive it for themselves before. “No.”

They sat in pensive silence for a moment, before Aziraphale thought to ask, “It didn’t hurt, did it? You’re okay?”

“I’m fine. Was just wondering. Anyway, look, I bought you breakfast.”

And very tempting it looked too, the teapot still steaming gently from the spout despite the hour or so they had just spent rucking up the bedsheets. But not as tempting as Crowley. 

Unfortunately Crowley was being quite insistent that he eat something that qualified as food. 

Happily, there was a middle ground to be had.

“This is not what I had in mind when I brought you breakfast in bed,” Crowley said, somewhere between outrage and intrigue. Meanwhile, Aziraphale continued to slather him in butter and jam and spent a great deal of time and attention licking it back off again until he was panting and groaning in arousal and disgust. Then they took it to the shower, where Crowley plastered himself to Aziraphale’s back under the torrent of hot water and made love to him again.

He was glad to have had those couple of hours in the rainy early morning, because his grip on time was becoming ever looser and the next hours -- days? -- became somewhat of a blur. Crowley was on his knees in the conservatory, sucking Aziraphale off as the rain pattered against the glass and the wicker chair creaked… And then... He was yanking Crowley’s t-shirt up and his underwear down to rub off between his buttocks as he tried in vain to fix Aziraphale a snack… And then... Crowley’s laughter and indignance as they stumbled kissing through the living room and went over the arm of the couch together… And then... Naked up against a wall somewhere, both of their cocks held in his grip… And then... Crowley asking, _asking_ to be fingered as Aziraphale went down on him, _asking_ to be held so tightly he couldn’t move...

It was getting harder to hold back, too. Aziraphale came back to himself at one point sheathed to the hilt in Crowley’s body, holding him up against the tiles of the shower cubicle with Crowley’s legs wrapped around his waist, slamming into him at a brutal pace and confronted right at eye-level by a constellation of bite marks across Crowley’s chest and shoulders. Some of them were old, too, an accusatory tale of colourful shame, red to black to green to yellow.

“Oh my dear,” he breathed, blinking away even as his hips continued to drive forward, unable to make himself stop. But Crowley just cupped his chin and turned him back, curling his spine to kiss him fervently.

“Harder,” he panted into Aziraphale’s mouth, water from the shower running down between their lips, fresh and raw. “I want you to _have this_.”

Aziraphale was really quite powerless to do anything else. (The tight band of anxiety around his heart slackened nonetheless.)

*

Aziraphale was captivating like this. It was easy to see that he was becoming less inhibited and more unravelled as the hours went by, and Crowley was almost perpetually in a state of gleeful delight and physical exhaustion, interspersed by moments of sheer overwhelming _love_. Sometimes he could see the angel getting so lost in all the lust and desire that he fell silent, and in those stretches Crowley would simply look at him, or close his eyes and _feel_ him, remember the thousands of years they’d spent too afraid to even touch, and let it all wash through him like a cleansing tide. Other times, they would hold entire conversations, almost like normal (although not the normal subject matter, he had to admit). The only difference really was that one or both of them was getting off at the time.

The loss of inhibition also made Aziraphale rougher. He had treated Crowley so gently, so carefully at first, and it wasn’t that he hadn’t enjoyed that, but there was something quite incredible about Aziraphale simply picking him up and taking what he wanted, an edge of danger within a wall of safety and trust that Crowley responded helplessly to. (And perhaps, perhaps, being needed so very badly, obviously, unrestrainedly did something to him, as well.)

There had been more strange incidents as well, though. More shocks, yes, like the one in bed, but also sometimes an ethereal light that built up behind Aziraphale’s eyes, bled out through his skin -- the kind that wasn’t exactly visible to humans but that they tended to feel as uncanny, sudden shivers and feelings of unprovoked dread. Intimations of mortality. Crowley wasn’t mortal, and he _could_ see it, and thought Aziraphale beautiful in those moments. Beautiful, and a little unnerving. (The plants had never looked better, throwing out flowers like they were going out of fashion. Even the tea rose was standing straighter, looking less sulky.) 

Yeah, Aziraphale was breathtaking like that. Like a storm, a gale-force wind you had to lean in to, or risk getting blown away. And it wasn’t that he’d ever thought of Aziraphale as weak, or genuinely in need of all those rescues Crowley had swept in to, but the fact that Aziraphle chose to be so soft when there was _this_ inside him? It filled Crowley with a strange sort of pride and awe that constantly threatened to leave him speechless.

(His own response to these episodes, Crowley was more troubled by. The way the angelic presence seemed to push his own humanity down, reveal the scales and fangs beneath the surface. Like an echo of what was happening to Aziraphale, a sympathetic reaction. Newton’s third law in metaphysical action.)

He found Aziraphale one evening in his library. They mostly hadn’t bothered getting dressed the last few days, what little time there was between bouts spent resting or getting cleaned up again, but for this expedition Crowley had pulled on the nearest thing he could find to ward off the chill that sometimes lingered in the cottage’s thick stone walls. It just so happened to be one of Aziraphale’s Aran jumpers. Apparently of similar mind, Aziraphale had put on a pair of tartan boxers and a rumpled sage-green t-shirt. Crowley was stumbling-tired, but Aziraphale looked so soft in the waning light that Crowley couldn’t help but go and pester him some more.

“What’re you doing in here?” he asked, slipping his arms under Aziraphale’s and pulling him back against Crowley’s chest.

“Oh, I, uh,” Aziraphale said, closing his eyes and leaning into it. “Not sure.”

“Lost time again?”

“Mmm. I’m exhausted. You must be, too.” 

Absolutely, Crowley was. It’d been several days since the last time he’d slept and while he didn’t strictly need it, his body had started to develop certain expectations over the years. He tended to feel better when he followed its lead.

“Want to try for a nap?”

Aziraphale let out a soft sigh. “Maybe.” He reached up to interlace his fingers with Crowley’s where they lay across his chest. “Perhaps I should go downstairs and let you rest.”

“You think you could?” Crowley asked with a mocking little pout, too close to Aziraphale’s ear not to be deliberately provocative. 

“You really don’t need to tempt me now, of all times, you wretch,” Aziraphale said fondly.

“Oh angel, you’ve always been an easy mark.”

“Hmph. That’s hardly sporting.”

“Nah. Know what’s not sporting? All these layers.” 

Crowley slipped his hand free of Aziraphale’s and ran it down over the swell of his t-shirt clad belly until he found skin, and then retraced his steps. He loved the feel of Aziraphale's soft body in his hands, all the ways he gave under Crowley’s explorations; let him really sink into the angel. He squeezed and kneaded his stomach, teased the fine trail of hair there, followed it up to his chest and toyed with his nipple until Aziraphale was gasping and arching into it. The motion pushed his arse into Crowley’s crotch, and yes, that was another excellent part of Aziraphale’s body, and so he got his other hand under the waistband of the awful tartan boxers and shamelessly groped a generous cheek; bent a little and grasped a heavy thigh. 

He’d fucked those thighs just yesterday (two days ago?) -- hadn’t even known that was a thing. He’d used too much lube on his first go opening Aziraphale up on his fingers, tried to push in too hard or not quite the right angle or something, and his cock had slid away like a bar of soap, ending up nestled between the tops of Aziraphale’s thighs. Neither of them had minded the change in course. He was getting hard thinking about doing it again, listening to Aziraphale’s soft moans, touching his skin. Bit of a surprise given the amount of sex they’d had today but not like he was going to complain. He found that bit he liked so much, where arse met thigh, the gentle curve and crease, and sank his fingers in, thinking about bending Aziraphale over the writing desk and having another go at his thighs.

But then Aziraphale turned in his arms and kissed him frantically, pulling him tight enough for Crowley to feel the solid outline of his cock in his underwear. 

“My dear, I desperately want to fuck you,” Aziraphale said, and Crowley forgot all ideas of his own, because yes, that. Aziraphale’s single-mindedness as he prepped and loosened and teased Crowley open, the heavy weight of him inside, the surety of it, the intimacy of the physical joining, the relief and pleasure it brought to his angel, just-- Aziraphale getting exactly what he’d asked for. _That_ was what Crowley wanted.

Aziraphale didn’t wait for an affirmative, lifting the hem of his jumper just enough to push a finger between his cheeks without breaking the kiss. Crowley hissed when he dragged it over the sensitive rim, resting his forehead against Aziraphale’s as he sucked in great lungfuls of air.

“That's it, darling,” Aziraphale murmured, working in the blunt tip before fingering him mercilessly. 

“Yes, _yesss.”_ Crowley sought Aziraphale’s mouth again, a kiss more breath and tongue than anything with finesse. Without warning Aziraphale shoved another finger in him and Crowley became a whimpering, needy mess, loving every minute so intensely he very nearly couldn’t stand it.

“I could -- _ah_ \-- I could have you just like this, you delicious creature,” Aziraphale groaned, rubbing against him and inside him, and _nnnng_ , that felt amazing, but--

“‘Ziraphale, gonna need something to lean on,” Crowley said, because he knew his body’s limits and the shaking in his tired limbs wasn’t anything to ignore.

“I see,” Aziraphale said, eyes flashing with that holy light that was becoming familiar when he didn’t get immediate compliance. But he was also walking Crowley backwards, fingers still in him, until they landed heavily against one of his floor-to-ceiling bookcases. Aziraphale pulled his fingers free and spun Crowley around while he sputtered out a curse at the loss, but yeah, this would-- this would work. These bookcases were built-ins, solid oak, and there was a shelf at the perfect height to fold his arms on, bend a little and rest his head. 

“Anything else you need?” Aziraphale asked and Crowley was painfully -- _painfully_ \-- in love with him, the effort he was making even now to take care of Crowley.

“H-hold my hips, when you’re in me,” Crowley gasped. “Hard. Don’t let me move.”

Aziraphale’s breath came hot and fast on the nape of his neck as the angel’s forehead fell against him with a groan. “And this is a-all right? Facing away?”

“Fuck yes,” Crowley said, not even needing to think about it. Things had moved on, and if _Aziraphale_ didn’t get a move on he was going to-- “ _Hhhnnnngggffffuck,_ angel.”

Aziraphale slid in, hands bracketing Crowley’s hips, and held himself there, infuriatingly stationary. Crowley tried to move, to buck into him, but he couldn’t, not even the tiniest twitch; Aziraphale’s grip was like a vice, and Crowley’s stomach swooped hotly. He was burning up, sweating from arousal and Aziraphale’s heat. When the angel finally began to move, jerking immediately into a punishing rhythm, it forced a soft grunt from Crowley’s lungs with every thrust (though he’d long given up feeling embarrassed by those kinds of things).

Behind him Aziraphale was coming undone, somehow still as unfamiliar and exciting as the first time. Crowley closed his eyes in the cradle of his arms and focussed on the sounds he was making, the obscene slap of skin on skin, the angel’s breathing and little helpless noises of pleasure.

One of Aziraphale’s hands snaked around from his hip to grope Crowley’s cock and the angel gave a pleased hum of approval that made Crowley’s bones turn to lava. He would’ve stumbled if not for the solid body plastered to his back, holding him up. 

“You like this,” Aziraphale said, pressing hot kisses across Crowley’s shoulder where the wide neck of the jumper had slid down.

“What-whatever gave you that impression, angel?”

Aziraphale squeezed his erection and Crowley’s voice got trapped in his throat.

“Can you come?” Aziraphale asked, dropped his forehead to Crowley’s nap, panting around the relentless pounding of his hips. “I really want you to come.”

“Yeah, I think if-- if--”

“What? Tell me, dear.”

Crowley knew, he _knew_ it was nothing to be ashamed of, and -- important distinction -- that Aziraphale wouldn’t shame him for it. And yet, six thousand years of bitter experience had taught him that admitting to liking something -- Heaven, even expressing a preference -- did nothing but expose your soft parts to attack. 

“Anything,” Aziraphale breathed. “Anything you want.”

_Anywhere you want to go._

Then again, this was Aziraphale, who he would literally rip his own guts out for. What was the difference, really?

“I want-- _nng_ \-- I want--” Didn’t mean it wasn’t hard, though. (He would always try again.) “Tell me. Tell me I’m...”

“Doing well?” Aziraphale finished for him, blessed creature. “You are, you wonderful thing. You’re so beautiful, and so willing, and you feel, oh, incredible. When I take you like this, I never want to stop. Oh my dear, gorgeous darling, I want to take you apart with pleasure.”

“Yeah that’s-- that’s getting more and more likely.”

The strength of Aziraphale’s thrusts had pushed Crowley’s upper body hard against the books now, hands forced out to the side and cheek pressed into the soft leather of the spines. (It was a mark of how far gone Aziraphale was that he didn’t care about his books getting such rough treatment, and it was ridiculous to find that so hot and yet Crowley did.) His lower body, Aziraphale held a little further back, depriving him of any friction except that which Aziraphale gave him, and he was doing so perfectly, hard and slow the way Crowley had discovered he liked best. He was building towards an edge that seemed to continuously recede, whether through exhaustion or by Aziraphale’s design, but every muscle in him was straining for a release he could taste but was powerless to pursue himself. It was utterly intoxicating.

Then Aziraphale said, “You’re wearing my jumper,” as if he’d only just noticed. 

“Yeah, I-- _nnh--_ ”

There was a strange sound coming from Aziraphale’s chest, oddly predatory, and every hair on Crowley’s body immediately stood on end. He felt the crackle across his skin, Aziraphale’s ethereal powers earthing through him again, a sharp shock of _cold_ that wasn’t all that painful but left him shivering like a struck bell nonetheless, mouth filling with smell-taste, skin tight with the potential for scales. Aziraphale’s mouth fell on the back of his neck and he was being crushed bodily up against the bookcase while Aziraphale practically fucked him through it. And then he was coming all over himself and his borrowed jumper and the angel’s collection of Wilde first editions (no loss there), and the only thing that stopped him from collapsing was Aziraphale’s strong arms wrapped around his body, holding him up while the angel continued to chase his completion, and Crowley drifted in the boneless afterglow and the strange pleasure of being used and needed like this, even while his body quivered confusedly on the cusp between human and not.

Then there was a sound from behind them, achingly familiar and yet so rare it took his tired mind a moment to parse. It was a sound like shaking a bedsheet out, the soft snap of the fabric as it went from folded to flat; the draft of air as it floated down to the mattress. But that was ridiculous, because they were in the library, and there was no bed in here, and bedsides Aziraphale was still balls deep in him and so who on Earth would be doing such a thing? And then he caught sight of a single, tiny piece of white fluff, drifting on the edge of vision, like a dandelion tuft… or a feather. 

Crowley forced his heavy head to turn enough to look over his shoulder.

“Aziraphale,” he murmured. “Your wings.”

But the angel was coming, and too far gone to hear anything he said.

*

Aziraphale breathed into Crowley’s neck and after some amount of time and a great deal of effort, finally managed to get his wings shoved away. That had never happened to him before, and it only fed his growing unease about the strength with which his celestial nature was forcing its way out of him. Normally by now things should be at their peak. He might plateau for a few days before the slow decline to normal, but he shouldn’t still be getting _worse_. And he was. Getting worse. Even now, with Crowley so exhausted he was practically asleep standing up, Aziraphale wanted him again with a hunger he couldn’t seem to sate. It was terrifying.

His dearest love was in desperate need of rest, though, and so was he. With an effort of will, Aziraphale withdrew from his body, and when Crowley stumbled, Aziraphale scooped him up in his arms and carried him to bed. 

The clothing did something to him. Perhaps that was it. The sight of Crowley in all that ivory wool, too large for his frame and yet barely covering him up, the neck sliding off one pointy shoulder, was a combination of alluringly soft and temptingly indecent. Seeing the one he loved above all else so completely at ease in something so quintessentially Aziraphale’s had perhaps caused some sort of short circuit.

(Yes, that must definitely have been it. No need to pay attention to the fearsome rational voice drawing unpleasant conclusions about what this all said about him when paired at last with his demonic lover.)

Placing Crowley gently on the bed, Aziraphale watched for a moment as he rolled over and got comfortable, asleep the moment he’d achieved his favourite face-down sprawl. Aziraphale envied him. He didn’t often wish for sleep but now he would have welcomed it. He was far too restless to settle. He paced back and forth a few times before realising how futile it was, and left to go haunt some other room of the house. He wouldn’t last long, he knew that, could feel it all creeping up his spine again already, but he was determined to give Crowley as long of a rest as was possible. 

In the end, he had very little conception of how long that was. He thought it had still been twilight when he’d carried Crowley to bed, and now it was dark, but that was the limit of what he knew. He was in the bedroom, very little idea of how he had got there, except for the logical conclusion that at some point he must have climbed the stairs and walked down the hallway. He was naked. He didn’t think he had been naked before, but who knew, really?

Aziraphale climbed into bed and resisted another three, four breaths, before he collapsed into Crowley with a small, desperate moan. What if he just held him for a while? A few more minutes at least. But it was hopeless -- Aziraphale's mouth and hands and hips were taking autonomous action, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

“Crowley,” he whispered shakily, hands already roaming the plains of his back, the jumper pushed up under his armpits. “Can you wake up, dear?”

He didn’t stir, breathing deep and even, a warm, deliciously pliant weight in Aziraphale’s arms, and Aziraphale realised with a certain amount of horror that he didn’t want to wake Crowley, he wanted to let him sleep, and at the same time, he wanted to make love to him again. He wanted both, and he was surely a dreadful, awful--

But. Crowley had given permission for this, however many days ago that had been now… He should’ve checked in again once they’d had a few rounds, he should’ve-- but at some point it had to become disrespectful, to continually question a lover’s stated boundaries, didn’t it? And yet, it felt so very wrong to have something he wanted in front of him and to just… _take_ it. Even when it had been offered. He was no stranger to guilty pleasures, but he didn’t want to feel guilty about Crowley. Not anymore. Then again, he had spent six millennia waiting for God to break Her silence and rain down Her wrath upon his head just to make an example of what a bad angel he was. She had given ample demonstration that She wasn’t going to. Maybe (the thought practically whispered itself, so tentatively daring, so painfully hopeful) maybe that meant there really wasn’t anything wrong with him after all. And maybe he should be more generous in trusting Crowley. 

His hand, he found, was on Crowley’s bare bottom, kneading the spare flesh lightly but with intent. He bent low and kissed Crowley’s shoulder where the neck of the jumper had slipped and left it exposed, inhaling the scent of his skin, while his middle finger slipped between his cheeks and rubbed over Crowley’s hole. 

Crowley did twitch at that, eyelids flickering heavily, a sliver of iris, twin luminous crescents, before sinking back under once more.

“There, darling,” Aziraphale soothed, kissing his cheek, nuzzling his nose where it was squashed into the pillow. “It’s just me. Go back to sleep.”

Crowley mumbled something that might’ve been Aziraphale’s name, and another soft sigh when Aziraphale slid a finger into him. He was still slick inside, loose from before and so very relaxed. Aziraphale withdrew long enough to pull Crowley’s onto his side and then held him close and pressed into him slowly. 

It was like the sea at night, rolling, dark, and quiet. It was like the rocking of a boat, with no resistance or tension in Crowley’s limbs, and his occasional soft noises like the sighing of the wind through the sails. Aziraphale wrapped him in his arms and spoke tender things in his ear, and when he came he saw clear black skies and infinite stars, and it was the last little nudge he himself needed to slide unhindered into sleep.

And he did sleep, though fitfully, waking frequently to reach for Crowley, head full of strange dreams of hellfire and stars. When he awoke at last to a more permanent state of consciousness, it was possibly because the sun was streaming through the curtains he’d forgotten to close last night, but more likely due to Crowley’s mouth between his legs, sucking him off with excruciating slowness, one finger buried in his arse. 

“Crowley,” he whimpered, sinking his fingers into thick, auburn hair. “Please, _please_.” Crowley blinked up at him at the sound of his voice, golden eyes warm and satisfied, but he didn’t pull away to give any response, for which Aziraphale was pathetically grateful. His orgasm was weak, as wrung out as he was, and he shivered through it feebly. Crowley lapped at him a little while longer with a gentle tongue, but for once Aziraphale didn’t need to go again immediately, and so he tugged Crowley’s hair lightly until he slithered up Aziraphale’s body and sprawled contentedly across him.

“I’m so sorry about last night,” he finally blurted. “I-- I-- you were so tired and I--”

“Sweetheart,” Crowley interrupted him with a tender kiss. “I told you it would be fine, and guess what?”

“Really?” Aziraphale asked, voice sounding very small even to his own ears.

“Yep. Actually--” Crowley flushed, looking disarmingly bashful, before he ducked his head back down to Aziraphale’s chest. “Really loved it. What I remember. Very relaxing. Could, uh, could definitely do it again some time.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale said, and squeezed him tightly, and tried not to shake the house down with his relief.


	7. Sunday, again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Let go, angel.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks once again to LylaRivers, mia-ugly and Ladiama for their beta skills. Praise be to betas who can look at a chapter you think is mediocre and tell you, very kindly, that you're an idiot ;) 
> 
> I've updated the tags again, please take note <3

_**Sunday, again** _

Crowley moved around the bedroom quietly. He'd woken up an hour or so ago and made the mistake of looking at his phone, which had informed him it was Sunday. Specifically, the second Sunday after all this had kicked off, when Aziraphale first hadn't come to bed with him. Which meant two very important things. One, neither of them had been food shopping for a fortnight, and two, the farmer's market was on in town today. Not that Aziraphale was eating much of anything (though Crowley had found a few interesting ways to tempt him into it), but he was surely going to be coming down from this thing soon. Crowley wanted to be prepared with a larder full of nice things for him when he did.

So he'd got up and thrown on a sundress because it was, for once, actually sunny, and because he was feeling well-praised and pretty. It was navy blue, cotton, a little detailing stitched at the neck and hem; the big transgression was its floatiness, slightly more than A-line (not Crowley’s usual style) but Aziraphale had called it charming in the shop so that had been that. He’d then pulled a black leather jacket over the top because it might be sunny right now but that meant shit all for the rest of the day (not to mention the number of bite marks that were still clearly visible beneath the dress’s flimsy straps that Crowley didn’t feel like healing away).

Said angel was out cold, curled up in the middle of the bed beneath the puff of the duvet, nothing but a tuft of white-blond hair visible. They had gone for several days again without rest, and so now that he had finally crashed, Crowley reckoned on having a few more hours at least. Should be fine.

Which brought him to the final obstacle between him, The Demon Crowley, and getting out of the house, which was underwear. Specifically, the silky briefs he usually favoured under an ensemble like this. They were supposedly women’s lingerie, if you wanted to subscribe to that sort of limited thinking (which he didn’t), but for once he could actually see a functional issue on the horizon. Which was that he’d never had to stuff a penis in them before. Grabbing what he thought might be the roomiest pair, Crowley went back to the bathroom with its large mirror over the vanity, and slipped them on before examining himself, skirt held aloft in one hand. Definitely a spanner in the works. He could just… stop making the effort for a bit, switch back to factory settings, but he didn’t want to give Aziraphale the wrong idea. Probably easier to just--

He snapped his fingers and gave himself a vulva. Yeah, that was much more comfortable. And might as well test out all the options, while they were doing this. He was pretty certain Aziraphale would enjoy exploring the lay of the new land on Crowley’s return. Bit of variety, and all that.

He wasn’t gone long, an hour or so maybe. The market was busy, Aziraphale’s favourite bread stall especially, but what was the point of being a recently-freed occult entity if you couldn’t miracle yourself to the front of the queue to snag the last country loaf on occasion? Pulling back up to the cottage in the Bentley, he had a big woven bag full of ethereally tried-and-true favourites on the passenger seat beside him: freshly churned butter, local honey, various cheeses, flaky pains au chocolat, and a healthy selection of seasonal jams. He figured he’d pop the kettle on while he was unpacking and make Aziraphale up a nice tray, and was so lost in such devious plots as he opened the front door that he didn’t notice the frantic, bare-chested angel laying in wait for him until he was being forcibly backed into the door behind him and smeared up against it like the softening butter he’d just bought.

“ _Mmngf!”_

“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale gasped between kisses. “I woke up--” kiss “--and you were gone--” kiss “--and I-- _Crowley!”_ Kiss. “I need you.”

It was like a magic word that, unlike any of Aziraphale’s fumbling performances over the years, actually worked. Aziraphale _needed_ him, and Crowley’s body lit up like Bonfire Night.

Aziraphale pawed at his clothes, getting in his own way as he tried to simultaneously plaster himself against Crowley and get his clothes off. The leather jacket tangled around his arms and Crowley shook it off inelegantly while Aziraphale continued to kiss him and palm his bare shoulders, his waist, flattening the skirt of the dress against his hips.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he gasped, fingers fumbling at the dress’s straps, the buttons, and actually making no progress. “Is this all right?”

Crowley took one of his trembling hands and guided it beneath his skirt, to the apex of his bare legs, and let the angel feel him through his underwear.

“Christ, I’m wet already,” he said dazedly, head thunking back against the door as Aziraphale attacked his neck and rubbed him firmly through the silk. 

“Oh God,” Aziraphale groaned. “You made a-- you changed--”

“Yeah,” Crowley said, definitely didn’t whimper, especially when Aziraphale worked his hand beneath the waistband and ran his fingers through Crowley’s slick. It felt different -- more diffuse maybe? -- pleasure coiling _inside_ in some mysterious way, so that even when Aziraphale’s fingers slid over his clit, he felt it further down -- _in._

“You’re dripping like a ripe pear,” Aziraphale murmured.

“Yeah,” Crowley said again. Then, “Want a taste?”

Aziraphale drew back far enough to meet his eye and said, with great feeling, “ _Fuck.”_ Then Crowley was in motion, spinning down the hallway until his arse collided with the frou-frou little side table. Aziraphale swept the nicknacks off its surface, spun Crowley again, and bent him over it face-down. Then he flipped up his skirt, yanked down his undies, and plunged home in one desperate, shuddering thrust.

He fucked Crowley hard, just like that, holding him down with one hand at the nape of his neck, and Crowley didn’t come, didn’t think he could without a little more attention, but his head was still reeling with how Aziraphale could get him from 0 to _burning for it_ in two minutes flat. He spasmed when Aziraphale came inside him, a clench of muscles, a hot little preview of how it might feel. So when Aziraphale leant over him, linking their fingers together on the tabletop and pressing wet, lingering kisses to the knobs of his spine, and started up immediately with a deep, needful moan, Crowley was more than happy for things to continue.

Aziraphale came again, quickly, wordlessly, and in such a manner that Crowley was fully expecting a third round, to the point that the angel withdrawing actually made him groan in complaint.

“Wha-?” he started, but Aziraphale’s strong hands were already at his hips, turning Crowley around and lifting him to sit on the table, before Aziraphale sank to his knees between Crowley’s legs and, making a sound like he was sampling the desert menu at the Ritz, licked him from cunt to clit.

“Ssssshit, _Aziraphale_ ,” Crowley hissed, thighs trembling as he lifted them to wrap around the angel’s shoulders. He was tasting himself, Crowley realised. His own spend mixed with Crowley’s arousal and -- fuck yes -- was stroking himself off as he did it. And he looked absolutely wild, in complete disarray, pyjama trousers hanging off his hips, face smeared, hair standing out in tufts from sleep and Crowley’s fingers, groaning into his pussy as he buried his tongue in there. The wet, sloppy sounds as he replaced his tongue with fingers so that he could suck on Crowley’s clit. The rhythmic stroke of skin on skin as he worked himself at the same time. The shopping bag discarded by the door, its bounty spilling out where it had been knocked over, ignored in favour of devouring Crowley. _Fuck_. He was burning up, he ached so viciously it almost hurt, and it tightened and tightened and Aziraphale was whimpering and Crowley didn’t know if he could stand anymore. And then Aziraphale glanced up at him, eyes bright and wild and lust-glazed, and Crowley tipped over in a raging torrent of pleasure, mouth off the reins, boot-clad heels digging into Aziraphale’s bare back, grasping his hair far too hard with both hands while he keened and cursed. He watched in drunken bedazzlement as Aziraphale’s eyes slid closed and he came once more, spilling over his own hand with his mouth still clamped firmly to Crowley, and with a great _whump_ like a sail picking up the wind, the angel’s wings erupted.

Crowley’s mouth moved wordlessly as he tried to make sense of the last twenty minutes, but his brain didn’t seem able to get past the image of Aziraphale on his knees with his wings out, face and hand still buried between Crowley’s legs.

Eventually, it became too much. Eventually, they disengaged. Aziraphale didn’t seem capable of rising from the floor and Crowley didn’t much feel like fighting gravity either and so he slithered down to meet him. He landed on the angel’s lap where he was still kneeling on the Axminster, knees bracketing thighs, and wrapped his arms around him, burying his face in the crook of Aziraphale’s neck.

“Sorry, angel,” he murmured. “Wouldn’t have gone out if I’d realised. I thought it’d be safe enough.”

Aziraphale took an immense breath, his whole body shuddering with it, and let it out on a slow exhale.

“It should be,” he whispered back, arms tightening around Crowley’s waist. “I don’t know why but I don’t feel as though it’s getting any better. It should be getting better.”

And then, to Crowley’s horror, Aziraphale started to cry.

“Hey, shush now,” Crowley said, stroking up Aziraphale’s spine between his wings, smoothing the small, soft feathers along the bone of the leading edge. 

“You suh-say that like it’s ea-ea-easy,” Aziraphale sobbed, clinging to the back of Crowley’s dress with two fisted hands, hiding his face in Crowley’s chest. He could feel the dampness of the tears against his skin and it was awful.

“All right,” he said, as soothingly as he knew how. “It’s all right. I didn’t mean that. Let it out if you need to. I’m here.”

It almost happened by itself, the thought so nascent it had barely formed in his mind before it somehow came into being. Like they had been _right there_. Dragged to the surface. Waiting. (Action; reaction. Newton’s third law.) Crowley’s wings appeared with a burst of displaced air. He mantled them around Aziraphale by instinct, a soft, dark cocoon just for the two of them.

He held the angel and petted his feathers, made soothing noises and tried to stay calm, for Aziraphale’s sake, but it was hard not to worry. Undoubtedly this cycle of Aziraphale’s took a toll on him, but why should it be so much worse this time? 

_With me._

The doubt he had been suppressing for some time now finally rose to the fore. Because what if that connection Aziraphale needed, that Earthly sort of rapture, wasn’t possible with him? What if his nature precluded it? Aziraphale had only ever done this with humans before, and even then not so often; Crowley wasn’t human, not on the inside. What if that was, ultimately, hurting Aziraphale?

Even now, as his body shook under the mantle of Crowley’s protection, his tears bathing Crowley’s skin, the angel was getting hard again, letting out choked, awful whimpers between sobs as he helplessly sought friction. Wordlessly, Crowley rose up on his knees and reached between them to position Aziraphale’s cock before sinking back down onto him. Aziraphale’s hands didn’t seek to guide or control this time. He stayed curled over in his misery, letting Crowley help him in the only way he could think of, with long, slow glides and tender caresses.

“I’m here,” he murmured again, stroking Aziraphale’s hair as he rode him gently. Finally, Aziraphale looked up at him, eyes red-rimmed and lashes clumped. 

“I’m afraid,” the angel said, and in the gloam of Crowley’s wings, his eyes, never precisely one colour or another, shone an electric blue.

“What of?” Crowley asked, feathering a kiss to his forehead.

“I’m s-scared that despite my love for you, there’s s-something… fundamentally incompatible in our n-natures.”

And Crowley-- stayed calm. Perhaps it was hearing his own fears spoken back to him so plainly. The absurdity -- the _effrontery_ of it. No, it was clear now.

“I think you’ve got it backwards, actually,” he said, eyes steady, voice even as he rose and fell over Aziraphale’s lap. “You said it yourself, if I recall -- I was an angel once. We’re not that different, when you really get right down to it. Not metaphysically.”

“Same stock.”

“Yesss, exactly. So maybe, listen, maybe you’re reacting this way because you need to.”

“Need to what?” Aziraphale whispered, eyes huge and glowing and desperate.

“Let go, angel.”

*

It was impossible, absolutely impossible, and yet the truth of the words rang through Aziraphale like a hymn in a cathedral. He had been holding back, fighting his impulses down in a way he’d never had to with previous lovers, simply because those impulses hadn’t been there _._ He’d been so terrified of what that meant, for him, for Crowley (what if God had been watching all this time afterall, and was finally enacting her punishment against the two of them -- against _him?_ ) because wouldn’t it just be perfect, in a very particularly Heavenly way, to make him the instrument of his own torment, hurting the one he loved above all with his most intrinsic nature?

And yet, he couldn’t hold back enough to stop himself from taking Crowley whenever he damn well pleased, and that was unsustainable, too. There was no way of acting without risk.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he pleaded, whether with himself, or Crowley, or God Herself he couldn’t say. But Crowley simply looked down at him, eyes tender, more collected that Aziraphale could ever remember seeing him.

“You won’t,” Crowley said, and he was so certain, _so certain_.

“I don’t know how,” Aziraphale whispered. Crowley kissed him softly on the lips, on the cheek, on the skin beside his ear.

“You do.”

And Crowley’s brand was right there, the curling snake that marked his nature, so Aziraphale let his eyes fall closed and pressed his lips to it and… let go…

and... it was like turning on a tap and letting the ocean flow out, and… he was a sphere of light, so bright it burned blue, and… he was made of a hundred-hundred eyes in stained glass and holy song, and… his wings were sharp-edged, dangerous things, each feather a knife…

and... before him was a demon, first in human form, then unfurling like a rosebud, and… the orange petals were made of hellfire and stars, and… he was on the angel and in the angel, and the angel was in him, and...he was beautiful, so very beautiful (they both were), and… the demon saw the knives in his wings, stars blinking, flames flickering, a hesitation that only lasted a moment before… 

a push and slide, as gentle and insistent as a hug, and… the angel understood that his wings weren’t for hurting, but guarding, and spread them wide, wide, to encompass the two of them, and… the demon settled into his glitter-edged protection as though he had never doubted it, and… the angel had supernovae in his eyes, and the demon’s hellfire burned blue, because… they weren’t angel or demon any longer, but one being, love like gravity, spilling out in waves from the very heart of them, holding them close forever, and… _this is what ‘our side’ means, I love you I love you I love you…_

_I know_

*

Aziraphale came back to himself slowly, sense by sense. First, a warm red light, the kiss of sunshine on his closed eyelids. Something about the newness of it said _morning_. Next, a soft chiming, like distant church bells. _Oh no_ , he thought, _I’m late for matins again._ He was drowsy, though, pleasantly heavy. Perhaps he’d skip the service this morning, put a tiny miracle to good use on the Abbot’s memory. Then the weight on his limbs stirred and he noticed the warmth of another body atop his, the roughness of a rug beneath. In his mouth was the taste of something thick and heavy, like blood or unwatered wine, not unpleasant, the taste of a sacrament. He took a deep breath, and it was like he hadn’t used his lungs in hours, like the first breath, cool and cleansing, and with it came the scent of old book dust and soil and… _Crowley_.

Blinking, Aziraphale forced the world into focus. The warm red light was a shaft of sunlight falling over his face from the narrow window beside the front door. The chiming was Crowley’s carriage clock lying on its side on the floor, from where Aziraphale had swept it from the side table previously. It read 10 o’clock -- presumably am. The scent of soil was the potted plant, similarly swept aside. The weight on his limbs was Crowley of course, and they were lying on the hallway floor, both entirely naked and… steaming lightly? What had they…? Oh.

_Oh._

There were feathers _everywhere_. 

“Mmfzaphel?” Crowley mumbled, trying and failing to lift his head from the vicinity of Aziraphale’s belly.

“Ye-- yes?” His throat was dry. Unused. Or used too much?

“Y’okay?”

“Yes.” He licked his lips, swallowed a couple of times. “Just one question.”

“Mmmf?”

“What day is it?”

*

Eventually they peeled themselves apart and off the floor, and staggered together to the bathroom, too tired even to miracle themselves clean. The hallway looked like the sight of the world’s most intense pillow fight, white and black feathers strewn about on every surface, but even though he itched to clean it up, Crowley was _certainly_ too tired for that.

They leant against each other in the shower, sharing the hot water and enjoying the nearness, until finally Crowley pulled together enough strength to reach for the shampoo, and they set about the herculean task of getting washed.

Only after, wrapped in a fluffy towel and sitting on the edge of the bathtub, trying to summon the motivation to dry off, did Crowley ask, “What the Heaven was that?”

Aziraphale blushed, more coy than embarrassed, looking up at him through his eyelashes as he rubbed his hair dry with a towel. 

“I could be mistaken,” he said, smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “But I think we might have just, um, _merged_ , as it were. Our essences.” 

“Oh,” Crowley said. “Right.” And now Aziraphale said it, Crowley realised he could feel it in his chest, a hollow place that he didn’t even know had been empty, now filled. A sense of _Aziraphale_ settling into place like the keystone of an arch. He touched his breastbone lightly and smiled. Aziraphale smiled back, and he _shone_.

And then his stomach growled like some kind of wild beast.

“Gracious, I’m starving!” the angel said, and Crowley was helplessly, _helplessly_ in love.

*

The shopping was still exactly where it had fallen. Crowley’s phone had confirmed that a full day had indeed gone by since its purchase, but it wouldn’t have dared go stale (though it was a little worse for wear in feathers).

Crowley sat back at the kitchen table and watched in quiet satisfaction as Aziraphale smeared various jams and spreads and pates on the bread, one slice after another disappearing to rapturous moans and decidedly indecorous slurps of tea. Everything was _delicious!_ or _scrumptious!_ or _Crowley you simply must try this, darling!_ And the only reason Crowley wasn’t in Heaven was because this was infinitely better.

Aziraphale ate and chattered and glowed for the better part of two hours, and when he was done, he grabbed Crowley by the hand and practically hauled him out the back door for a walk. Then it was more of the same -- the sea air was marvelous, and the terns were just darling, and oh, look, that cloud was the very image of Harry the Rabbit.

Crowley followed along, happy to be led by Aziraphale, tiredness forgotten in the wake of his unbounded joy. They walked all the way down the coastal path to the public beach, got ice creams from an ice cream van and sat on a bench to eat them and people-watch, and it seemed that Aziraphale didn’t _stop_ until they passed the little outcropping on the cliffs on their way home.

Then, Aziraphale paused, and they stood side-by-side looking over the Channel, just as they had a fortnight ago with the storm blowing in on the horizon. Today, it was nothing but blue skies dotted with fluffy white clouds, sparkling seas, a moment of contented stillness before Aziraphale spoke.

“My dear, will you be offended if I thank you for the last couple of weeks?”

Crowley snorted. “Bloody _yes_.”

Aziraphale smiled, different to before, less effervescent, but very, very fond. “Well then, let me just say how lucky I feel, have _always_ felt, to have you in my life.”

Crowley swallowed thickly and squeezed Aziraphale’s hand in lieu of answering. “It’s over, then?”

“I believe so, yes.”

Crowley curled a small smile, and tipped his glasses down to look at Aziraphale over the rims. “How’d I do?”

Aziraphale’s laugh bubbled out of him like champagne. “You know, back in the 4th or 5th Century, I once worked my way through an entire Athenian brothel in just over a week. Completely tired them out. So my dear, I’d say you did rather well.”

And what was there to say to that? Crowley threw his head back, and laughed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The true form scene was inspired by [The Marriage of Heaven and Hell](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21527302/chapters/51316288) by emjee -- if you like tropes and beautiful prose, you will love this. Please check it out :)
> 
> Note: this is not the end! One more chapter to go.


	8. Six Weeks Later

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The best thing about dining at the Ritz, Crowley decided (aside from Aziraphale’s radiance in the light of the chandeliers, of course) were the floor-length tablecloths. Could hide a multitude of sins, tablecloths like that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it, folks. We made it to the end. I can now go into labour in peace! I hope you've all enjoyed this ridiculous little fic that grew so big. With soon-to-be two small kids and a pandemic still raging on, I'm not expecting to write anything new for a long time, but I'll be around a little, here and there. Feel free to come and say hi on Tumblr :)
> 
> Big thanks and much love to my betas [LylaRivers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LylaRivers/pseuds/LylaRivers), [mia-ugly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mia_ugly) and [Ladiama](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladiama/pseuds/Ladiama) for all their help. I have so much appreciation for all of you <3
> 
> And with apologies to my husband, the real life infernal tidier...

_**Six Weeks Later** _

“ _Dear!_ ” Aziraphale called across the cottage. He would never do anything so uncouth as to shout. He merely... projected. “Have you seen my book?”

“Which one?” Crowley yelled back. He was still in the garden from the sound of it. Why was he still in the garden? They needed to leave soon. 

“The one I was in the middle of reading!”

“Angel, we have approximately five billion books, at least half of which you’re in the middle of reading at any given time. Be more specific.”

Aziraphale huffed, very put out as he hunted around the living room, checking behind the sofa cushions and under the coffee table. “The-- the new one, with the translation by that nice young Canadian lady. You remember? We met her in Oxford once.”

Crowley stuck his head around the open back door and gave Aziraphale a look of exaggerated disbelief. “The Euripedes? We’re calling that new, now?”

Aziraphale shot him a disgruntled look. “In the grand scheme of things. Besides, I meant new to m--”

“What are you-- argh! Angel, stop, I’m begging you,” Crowley interrupted, and it took Aziraphale several moments to realise what he was talking about, which was apparently the _very mildly_ dislodged state he had left the furniture in. He gripped the velvet throw pillow he’d just been about to toss aside guiltily.

“Well if you’d just tell me where you’ve put it.”

Crowley stared at him in blank exasperation. “It’s on the bookshelf, in your library. You know, where the books belong.” Then he turned and disappeared back in the direction of the rose border.

“Well how was I supposed to find it there?” Aziraphale muttered. “Infernal tidier.”

He huffed upstairs, and, book finally in hand, went back to the bedroom and attempted to stuff it into his suitcase with the eleven other books and single change of clothes he had packed. They were only going away for the weekend; this ought to do nicely.

It was the end of August. The anniversary of the world not ending (followed by a rather more personal anniversary the day after that). They were going down to London to celebrate. To the Ritz, in fact. Crowley had suggested it, and Aziraphale rather liked the idea of a yearly ritual, a place that could be Their Place, even more so than it had been before. Not to mention that he hadn’t stayed in one of their rooms for at least a hundred years, and was rather looking forward to seeing how things had changed (which was a rather flimsy way of saying, “how human ideas of luxury had changed”).

Which was why he didn’t want to waste a minute more getting on the road. If only Crowley would get a move on, and -- oh dear -- if only his suitcase would close. Aziraphale applied his bodyweight to the top of the case in the hopes of convincing the clasps to meet. The suitcase, which was a good half-a-century old by now and knew its place, subsided with a dusty sigh. Aziraphale let out a little crow of victory before hefting the thing down to the car.

Crowley met him by the garden gate, no longer muddy and dishevelled, but clean, freshly clothed and immaculately coiffed, looking very handsome as usual. He grinned unrepentantly when he saw Aziraphale coming.

“What took you so long? Thought I was going to be waiting all day.”

Aziraphale tutted, “Well if you’re going to _cheat_.”

Crowley stuck out his bottom lip in mocking sympathy, before leaning forward into Aziraphale’s space. At first, he assumed Crowley was simply going to take his suitcase for him, but then Crowley kissed him instead. _Oh yes,_ Aziraphale thought, stomach fluttering happily, _we do that now._ Somehow he ended up pressed against the door of the Bentley, Crowley leaning into him, a comfortable warm pressure all down his front as they kissed unhurriedly.

“Mmm, you fiend,” Aziraphale sighed, eyes still closed as Crowley moved back barely a hair’s breadth, noses still touching. “We’re going to be late.”

“Oh, want to get going, do you?”

“However could you tell?” Aziraphale asked dryly.

“Right,” said Crowley. “Ready when you are. Only one problem.”

Aziraphale sighed. “What now?”

“Going to have to let go of me, angel.”

“Ah,” Aziraphale said, unwinding his arms from around Crowley’s neck with a bashful smile. “Yes.”

“What on Earth were you doing all this time, anyway?” Aziraphale asked, once they were finally in the Bentley and underway. Crowley was smiling to himself in a way that Aziraphale knew meant he was on to him, but he was still enjoying himself too much to let go of it just yet. There was a not-so-secret thrill to these kinds of little arguments, a sort of humdrum domesticity that he’d once wanted so badly he hadn’t even let himself yearn for it. And now that he had it, he couldn’t help… well, capitalising, occasionally.

“Had to make sure the honeysuckle isn’t going to slack off while we’re away,” Crowley said mildly. “Give the tea rose its orders. You know how it is.”

“Oh?” Aziraphale asked, momentarily derailed. “I thought the two of you had come to a détente.”

“Yeah, but,” Crowley muttered. “Can’t let it think I’m going soft.”

“Hmmf, well, be that as it may,” Aziraphale said, regaining his momentum. “We’re now quite late and--”

“Says the angel who spent _fifteen minutes_ saying goodbye to his bees.”

“I did no--! That is entirely d--”

“Oh! Oh! Entirely different, is it? Even though I was actually already packed and ready to--”

“Crowley you know how much I hate being late,” Aziraphale whined.

“Oh relax, angel,” Crowley said, with the kind of rakish grin that had always made Aziraphale weak. “It’s called fashionable for a reason.”

“And there’s a _reason_ I have never once knowingly _been_ fashionable,” Aziraphale said sulkily, not quite willing to give up the warm energy of their bickering just yet.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Crowley said. “I seem to remember a rather fetching little ensemble in Revolutionary France.”

“It was rather good, wasn’t it?” Aziraphale said, subsiding finally as he smiled to himself. “Those shoes were so pretty.”

“Not as pretty as you, sweetheart.” It was said with exaggerated insincerity, which of course meant that Crowley was being entirely earnest. Aziraphale blushed happily and straightened his bowtie. After a moment, Crowley put his hand on Aziraphale’s thigh, and left it there for the remainder of the journey.

*

The best thing about dining at the Ritz, Crowley decided (aside from Aziraphale’s radiance in the light of the chandeliers) were the floor-length tablecloths. Could hide a multitude of sins, tablecloths like that. A multitude of human delights. They hadn’t really talked yet about where things stood between them, not in the frank way Aziraphale seemed to favour, but that didn’t mean they would go back to how things had been before. Actually, they hadn’t. Kissing, casual touching, lying tangled up together in bed, all of those things they had continued to do since Aziraphale’s cycle had ended. Neither of them had initiated sex -- probably, Crowley thought, because they both needed the rest. But sitting here now, watching Aziraphale light up the room from across the table while making _those_ noises, lips wrapped around a fork he was withdrawing from his mouth indecently slowly, Crowley couldn’t help but get ideas. Hence, pondering the tablecloths.

There really was rather a lot of trouble a demon could cause, under one of those. For example, he was fairly certain he could stop time briefly, slither underneath the table, and the drape of the pristine white cloth would mean that no one would be any the wiser. Except Aziraphale, of course. He could make Aziraphale _very_ aware of his presence under there. If the angel wanted him to.

“Crowley? Are you quite all right, dear?”

“Yeah,” he said, clearing his throat. “Fine.”

“Are you sure?” Aziraphale asked, his eyes dancing playfully. “Only you’re looking a little…”

“What?”

“Intent,” he said, and with deliberate slowness, raised his fork to his lips again without breaking eye-contact, right up until the moment when his eyelids fluttered closed with a look of ecstasy. Oh that bastard, he’d clearly figured Crowley out.

Right. Well. Two could play that game. Crowley sat back, twiddling the stem of his champagne flute as casually as he could manage, and slid his toes up Aziraphale’s calf. He was wearing strappy high heels, toes exposed and toe nails painted a deep red. It was Aziraphale who had painted them for him earlier, as they’d lounged about together on their suite’s oversized sofa; Crowley could _see_ him thinking about them now, as they reached the back of his knee, a thick swallow and a faint flush to his cheeks.

Multitude of delights indeed.

“Behave, darling,” he murmured. 

Crowley raised his eyebrows innocently. “Me? You started it, angel.”

Aziraphale set his cutlery down and dabbed primly at his mouth with his napkin. “You do make it rather easy, looking at me like that.”

“I do, do I?” Crowley murmured back, nudging Aziraphale’s knees further apart with his toes and meeting no resistance at all. “S’that my yearly performance review?” The emphasis on _performance_ was so slight as to be barely noticeable to anyone else, but of course Aziraphale noticed it. He took a sip of water, straightened his bowtie, and all the while let Crowley’s toes climb higher up his inner thigh.

“I think perhaps… I could come up with a few other criteria,” he said a little breathily. “If you were interested.”

“Hmm,” Crowley said, biting his lip. “List of tick-boxes, or prose?”

He reached the top of Aziraphale’s thigh and applied the lightest of pressure. The angel’s fist clenched around his napkin and his eyes lost focus.

“W-whatever you prefer,” he said faintly. And then -- _fuck_ \-- he tilted his hips ever so slightly into the pressure of Crowley’s shoe. Crowley couldn’t take his eyes off of him, sitting so straight and proper, rubbing himself off in millimetres just barely out of sight of anyone who cared to glance their way. 

“Christ,” he muttered, the black satin ankle-skimmers he’d donned for the occasion suddenly very tight.

“Oh dear,” Aziraphale said. “I think I’ve had a little too much champagne.”

Crowley paused, withdrawing a touch. “Do you want to sober up?”

“No, I-- well, maybe I should?” Aziraphale gave him a conflicted look, deliciously flushed.

“Seems a bit of a shame, on our anniversary,” Crowley said mildly.

“It’s just, perhaps we should talk?”

Crowley tried not to groan. He got it, he did. Words might not always be his best friends, but they were important, sometimes. _And_ they had known each other for more than 60 human lifetimes and were both pretty adept at reading the other’s nonverbal cues. 

Maybe they weren’t there yet, but it would be really nice to just… have a little spontaneity. At some point.

“The fortnight of fucking was nice. The break was nice, too. I'm not saying I want it every day but I really want to have sex with you tonight,” Crowley said, all in one breath, hoping that would do the trick.

“You-- oh, you-- I see.” Aziraphale sat blinking at him.

“Any objections?” Crowley prompted. “Are you finished eating?”

“Well,” Aziraphale said, snapping out of it. “I _was_ rather hoping for dessert.”

Crowley growled, launching to his feet. “I’ll get you room service,” he said, dragging Aziraphale up and out of the restaurant before he could say another word.

“Oh I’m not sure that’ll be necessary,” Aziraphale replied, with the smallest of smirks, and Crowley had to restrain himself from throwing Aziraphale up against the nearest wall and kissing him silly. 

Waiting for the lift was a torture hitherto unknown to man-shaped occult being, and finding it _not empty_ was enough to make his fingers twitch with a vindictive demonic miracle. Aziraphale quelled it with a hand over his knuckles, and kept ahold of him into the carriage as they shuffled around their fellow hotel guests to stand at the back. They were side by side, close enough their shoulders touched. The lift slowly emptied as they rose through the floors, but there were still a couple of humans left when Aziraphale released Crowley’s hand and, slipping it unobtrusively behind him, started quite shamelessly groping his arse.

“Angel,” Crowley whispered, not sure if it was a warning or a plea.

“I do like these new trousers,” Aziraphale whispered back. “Very soft.” He didn’t look at Crowley as he spoke, merely directed a faintly pleased expression to the middle distance and kept up his assault on Crowley’s rear end.

“Getting less soft by the minute,” Crowley breathed, but all that happened was that Aziraphale’s eyebrows rose and his lips pursed in a look that was less _angelic innocence_ and more _unbearably smug_.

Finally they made it up to their floor, and the door to the lift had barely closed before Aziraphale was pulling him into a filthy kiss. They collided inelegantly with a door that wasn’t theirs and were met with a disgruntled yell from inside.

“It says do not disturb!”

“Dreadfully sorry!” Aziraphale called back, completely failing to stifle his giggles, before he grabbed Crowley’s hand again and sped off down the corridor until they made it to the correct door. Crowley dropped the key card in his haste to get the damn thing open, and snapped his fingers at it in sheer desperation.

“Angel,” he breathed between kisses as they stumbled in. “You are trying -- to kill me.”

“Quite the opposite, I assure you,” Aziraphale replied, both hands on his arse now as he ground them together. They ricocheted off a poorly placed side-table before coming to rest against a stretch of wall. Crowley groaned embarrassingly loudly when Aziraphale leaned his body-weight into him, pressing Crowley firmly into the wall, before working one hand between them to palm his cock.

“Oh yes, I do see what you mean,” he said, squeezing lightly as he ran his fingers up and down the trapped length of him. “Quite the opposite of soft.”

Crowley made an abortive attempt at speech, and when nothing sensible seemed likely to emerge, set himself to divesting Aziraphale of his layers instead. It was extremely gratifying to push the linen jacket from his shoulders to fall crumpled on the floor, and hear not a word of complaint about it. And then, _yes_ , the soft, silken _shh_ as he slid the bowtie from beneath Aziraphale’s collar, the dip of his throat revealed as Crowley unfastened the top button of his shirt, the smell of his skin at the junction of his neck when Crowley buried his face there. He had missed this. He hadn’t realised how much until just now.

And he’d clearly missed it enough to be extremely distracted because the next thing he knew Aziraphale had somehow got his trousers around his thighs and was wrapping one warm, broad-palmed hand around his cock.

“Now who’s cheating?” he gasped into Aziraphale’s skin. He felt the angel’s chuckle as much as heard it.

“Just a little bit of give and cake.”

Crowley reared back to look at him. “Was that-- was that supposed to be a pun? That was dreadful.”

“Well, you did offer me dessert, and besides, didn’t you invent them, dear?” Aziraphale asked, pumping Crowley’s cock tight and slow. “I always thought they were a rather delightful little language game.”

“Yeah but-- Wait, _delightful?_ I’m a demon, I’m not--”

“Oh but you are,” Aziraphale said, a note of confidence in his voice that made Crowley’s knees weak. “Delightful. Delicious. Quite the sweet little snack.”

Crowley let out a pained sound. “Please don’t ever call me a snack again.”

“Sweet, though,” Aziraphale said, grinning unrepentantly. “And so very good to me. Such a wonderful, good--”

It was more than he could take, just then. Crowley shut him up in the most expeditious way he could think of, which was to push him back towards the bed, and kiss him deeply. Aziraphale’s moan was deep and rich and reverberated right through Crowley’s body. When the back of his thighs hit the mattress, he pulled Crowley down with him like an avalanche. Then, well, there was a lot of awkward writhing about and getting tangled up in clothes. Aziraphale insisted on removing Crowley’s shoes himself, but somehow couldn’t work the tiny buckles, and then there was toe-sucking, which -- Christ, _not_ Crowley’s thing. But then there was breathless laughter, and -- thank _someone_ \-- skin, and more kissing on that great big cloud of a bed.

“What do you want, darling?” Aziraphale asked him as they lay entangled, rutting up against each other with purpose but not urgency. 

_Just this,_ Crowley thought. _Just you_.

“Please,” Aziraphale whispered, when his hesitation dragged on. “Tell me something I can do for you.”

Crowley grimaced at him. “This isn’t some obligation thing, is it? Because you know how I feel about being _thanked_.”

“No,” Aziraphale said, looking surprised enough to appease Crowley. “It’s simply… such a _pleasure_. To touch you like this, and be in control of myself. You have no idea.”

“You don’t have to deny yourself just because you can.”

“No, no, you’re right. Call it savouring.”

“All right.” And if the word _savouring_ didn’t bring a very vivid image from dinner racing back… He touched Aziraphale’s lips with the pad of his thumb. “Then I want your mouth.”

It was, ostensibly, just like the first time -- the first time Crowley had been naked like this in front of Aziraphale, with a purpose. The first time Aziraphale had made him feel these things, sprawled out awkwardly on their couch back home. And yet it was nothing like that, no uncertainty or nerves, no careful build of Crowley’s pleasure and removal of his own from Aziraphale. It was warm, and slow, and good from the start, and this time Crowley knew to use his nails on Aziraphale’s scalp, to tug his hair just so, to let out every sound he’d been shy of before, because Aziraphale loved those things. Then, when the pleasure began to coalesce and become more pointed, he gently pushed Aziraphale away and asked him for the next thing.

And so they lay, spooned together on the bed, Aziraphale behind him, in him, holding him tight against him, pouring sweetness into his ear, until Crowley came, hot and slow, until he was slack with bliss, and still Aziraphale continued to rock into him, tenderly, with such erotic restraint, until they were both shivering and strung out on it. The sound Aziraphale made when he finally came would stay with Crowley forever.

*

They didn’t sleep. At least, Aziraphale didn’t think they did, merely drifted together for a while in warm, sweaty comfort with the duvet pulled up to their shoulders, until Crowley began to complain about the wet patch and Aziraphale fancied a cup of tea. They went about their separate rituals, Aziraphale quietly basking in the beloved domesticity of the sound of the shower running in the next room. Outside, the sun was starting to set, lights blinking on across the city. Aziraphale stood by the french doors that led onto their private balcony and watched the sky change colour for a little while. 

_Perhaps tonight_ , he thought. A pleasant walk, see the nighttime sights of the city, maybe catch a cinematographic show in one of the big multiplexes Crowley liked so much. Or tomorrow, after they’d fed the ducks in St. James’s for old time’s sake, filled up on Turkish coffee and baklava at that little place nearby. 

Nodding to himself, Aziraphale called down a miracle to get clean and dressed, warmed the tea that had cooled while he was gathering wool, and went to the bathroom to see what progress. 

Crowley was standing in front of the vanity, naked except for the towel draped low around his waist, and looking so beautiful, so bright and tempting, that Aziraphale nearly threw over his plans there and then in favour of another round. Shakily, he put his tea down on the edge of the sink, and caught Crowley’s look of amusement as it clattered a little on the porcelain. _Again, angel?_ it seemed to say.

“Well if you will walk around looking like that,” Aziraphale said primly. “Anyway, what do you say to getting dressed? I thought perhaps we could go out.”

“If you like.” Crowley shrugged easily. “Anywhere particular in mind?”

“Leicester Square, perhaps. Get a spot of gelato.”

“Peckish again?” Crowley loped over to him, slung his long arms over Aziraphale’s shoulders, hips cocked forward. “I thought you’d had your dessert.”

“Nothing says I can’t have seconds,” Aziraphale said, delightedly breathless. “Besides, the first one, scrumptious as it was, didn’t come with maltesers.”

“Ehhh, good point,” Crowley said, and kissed him lightly on the lips. “Chocolate and white sheets, never a good combination. Give me a few minutes and then we can be off.”

“All right.”

Aziraphale was at the door when he remembered his cup of tea. Turning to go back for it, the sight of Crowley at the mirror gave him pause. He was examining his neck, turning this way and that as though looking for... Oh no. Not again.

“Was I… Was I too rough?” Aziraphale asked quietly. 

Much of Aziraphale’s time under the influence of his affliction was hazy, memories running into each other like a badly choreographed dream, but he did remember the mess he had made of Crowley’s skin quite vividly, the bites and suck marks and bruises from his fingers smudged across him like a bad impressionist painting. They were long healed, now, but he wasn’t sure he’d ever forget.

Crowley stopped what he was doing and met Aziraphale’s eyes in the reflection. “Nothing wrong with a bit of rough sometimes,” he said. “I like having your marks on me.”

Aziraphale didn’t notice he was wringing his hands until Crowley spoke again. “What’s wrong, angel?”

“I don’t… I didn’t like seeing you like that. Covered in bruises. It made me feel like a… a brute. Hurting you because I could.”

“Ah,” Crowley said, understanding immediately. Aziraphale had been made a guardian, a soldier, really, but had always preferred to choose to be gentle; to be kind and warm where other angels were not. It was the absolute worst thing about the affliction, the way it could bring out such harsh instincts in him. Crowley had said he didn’t mind, and Aziraphale could remember enough to believe him, but oh, _he_ minded. He minded a great deal.

“What… did you like about it?” Aziraphale asked quietly, unable to look at him as he spoke. “Perhaps I could -- with a little warning--”

Crowley bit his lip, turning back to the mirror as he touched his neck again. “I liked having a little piece of you to carry around with me,” he said. “You know, something I could feel, under my clothes.” Then he let his fingers trail down to the centre of his chest, caressing it lightly. It was the spot where they could each sense the other now, in some heightened way Aziraphale was still becoming accustomed to. Marvelling at. To him, it felt like a warm blanket wrapped around his shoulders, only on the inside. “Then again, that was before the whole--” Crowley waved his hand vaguely. “Mating. Thing.”

“Good gracious, Crowley,” Aziraphale spluttered softly. “ _Mating_. Really.”

“Well whatever you’d call it.”

Aziraphale finally glanced up, and their eyes locked in the mirror. “I may have a, um, an alternative to offer,” he said. “But I don’t really think a hotel bathroom is the, ah… Will you put something on and come out, please?”

It wasn’t exactly the set up he’d been thinking of, but suddenly he couldn’t wait a moment longer.

Crowley emerged half a minute later, wrapped in a white hotel bathrobe, and it wasn’t Aziraphale’s, but the colour… it had a similar effect. A proprietary jump in his belly and squeeze in his heart. 

Aziraphale gestured to the little breakfast table by the balcony doors and offered him a tentative smile as they sat.

“What is it, angel?”

And then there was nothing for it but to take a deep breath, reach for Crowley’s hand, and sink to one knee. 

“I, um.” He laughed nervously. “I thought I would save this for the perfect moment, some grand gesture you would appreciate, but I think, I think this is better. Just the two of us. Just as I’ve always wanted it to be.” He held out his free hand, a ring box within it. “You said you liked having something of mine to take around with you, when we’re parted, so how about-- how about this?”

“Aziraphale--” Crowley started, but his voice was nothing but a creaking whisper. His eyes were golden to the edges, liquid-bright, as though all the moisture in his throat had gone straight to his eyes. Aziraphale’s heart throbbed painfully, an intense pang of adoration.

“Crowley, I love you,” he said. “I love you more than anything. And if-- if you’re amenable, since we’ve chosen them, I’d like to make it official in the eyes of the humans.”

He released Crowley’s hand to open the box. Inside, nestled amid a tiny sea of black satin, was a simple platinum band with a single pale blue diamond embedded in the metal. It was something for a relief, when he took Crowley’s hand again, to feel that he was trembling too, because Aziraphale himself was about to shake apart, a deep quake at the very core of him.

“I know after everything it might seem a bit silly,” he continued, voice becoming embarrassingly raspy. “Or, or small. But I thought, since the humans do it--”

“Yes,” Crowley whispered, fingers clenching hard around Aziraphale’s, eyes shocked and wide and so happy. “Aziraphale, yes.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale said, and his chest split open with joy, and delight, and the summer sunrise of Crowley’s eyes. “Oh, good.”

*

In a cottage in the South Downs, there is a garden that is a little worse for wear from the recent trampling of more feet than usual. There is a big black bin bag, half full of white paper plates and left over food, abandoned to be dealt with later. There are a handful of rickety wooden chairs, folded up along the garden wall, ready to be returned to the local town hall. There is paper confetti caught between leaves and amid dew-covered petals (though a tea rose stands curiously aloof). 

Inside the house, there is a side-table with a glass carriage clock, a potted plant, and a photo frame atop it, and next to them, a vase full of feathers, beautiful long ones unlike any found on mortal birds. They shimmer in a shaft of morning sunlight, pearlescent white and iridescent black, two ends of a spectrum that is filled in between with a rainbow of colour. Further down the hall, there is a kitchen, where a teacup and a coffee mug sit together abandoned by the sink, and up the stairs there is a wardrobe where a traditional black morning suit and a rather risque ivory gown hang side-by-side.

And there is a bedroom, and a bed, and two ancient beings just stirring into wakefulness as the light of the new day spills around the curtains. 

And there is love. Most of all, love.

**Author's Note:**

> [Come find me on Tumblr :)](https://themoonmothwrites.tumblr.com/)


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